by Chris Smith
An hour passed and during a commercial break, Libby went into her bedroom and turned on the lamp. Those creaking floorboards seemed loud tonight and she vowed to prune that frangipani, which scraped repeatedly against the window of her bedroom. She opened the drawer of her side table, found her nightie and laid it across her bed. Closing the blinds at the front window, she noticed the dimly lit trees in her front yard swaying with the breeze. The frangipani’s branches knocked gently against the frame.
The mere thought of a cool change raised the hairs on the back of her neck and goose bumps prickled on her arms and legs. She removed her shirt and shorts and undid her bra—it was rubbing against her shoulders after her whirlwind cleaning frenzy. She tossed the clothes into the basket behind her door. She picked up the nightie and slipped it over her head, lifting her arms as the silk slid over her shoulders and down to her thighs. She switched off the light and went back out to the kitchen for a glass of water. The shuddering of water through the straining copper pipes startled her. Her right knee smacked against the sink cupboard.
As the water rushed into the glass, a flicker of yellow light reflected briefly on the right side of the tap. She turned towards the window quickly. She tried to focus her vision, peering into the pitch black of her small, leafy rear yard. Frowning, she stood still, unable to work out where the flicker had come from. She watched, totally still for twenty seconds, not breathing, until she saw another flicker of light flash between the bushes on the back fence. The silhouettes of trees and branches tossed in the darkness. The breeze had become a wind and the flicker appeared again and then again. Her glass slipped in her hand, clanging against the sink, scaring her witless.
She crossed her arms, wrapping them around her shoulders and across her breasts. She was cold, close to shaking and her heart pumped hard. She lunged at the kitchen window, releasing the curtain ties to cover the view. It was pointless—the curtains were thin white lace, transparent. Libby shuffled quickly into the lounge and dropped the wooden venetians, tightening the slats. But the slats left gaps. If he was out there, he could see her every move.
She rechecked the deadlock on the back door, then switched off the light and the television, standing silently in the middle of the ever-narrowing room. Her body was shaking. What should she do? She listened to the wind between the trees and waited for the next sign to confirm what she feared—that Hopkins was armed with the dark again and was slowly moving along her back fence.
Fifteen minutes passed. Then a muffled thud struck her bathroom window, the only window without any covering. What the hell was that? Could he be trying to break the window to get inside?
‘Oh God, stop it, Phillip. Stop it please,’ she pleaded softly. Through the venetians she saw vividly the shadow of a man passing by the window. Her breath left her body. She backed down the corridor, not knowing where to hide. Another thud hit the kitchen window; it rattled violently. The fright made her jump 30 centimetres off the ground. ‘Oh my God! Please go away. Stop it!’ she yelled.
Replying to her scream, a thud rattled the spare room window and a flash of light beamed into the corridor less than a metre away.
‘That’s it,’ she said as she ran back into the darkened lounge room to pick up the telephone. After knocking her leg against the telephone table, she grappled with the receiver before dialling triple-0. The reply took what seemed like an eternity, but in reality the operator came on the line in less than ten seconds.
‘Please, I need the police,’ Libby begged.
‘What’s wrong, Madam? Where are you?’ asked the calm female voice on the other end.
‘He’s in my yard. He’s mad. He’ll hurt me again and he can get inside! Please, can you please get the police here quickly?’
‘Who’s there, Madam?’
‘My boyfriend. No, my ex-boyfriend, Phillip Hopkins,’ she said.
‘How do you know he’s there, Madam?’
‘Oh please believe me, it’s him,’ she said in a louder voice, her eyes now welling with tears of frustration.
Realising Hopkins might be listening, she lowered her voice to tell the operator her address and demanded that a police car be sent around. She dropped to the floor and huddled against the lounge, rocking back and forth on the rug, anxiously awaiting his next move. Tears rolled freely down her face as she jammed her chin firmly between her knees. She was as cold as ice but wasn’t prepared to move to find a jumper or a dressing gown to keep warm. Again, the light appeared through the bathroom window and remained for several seconds before going out.
‘You are a psychopath, Phillip!’ she yelled as loud as she could. ‘This breaches your AVO again, you idiot. They’ll send you to jail for this, you bastard!’
Seconds later there was a knock at the front door. She gripped her knees tighter. She was not going to open the door to a violent and enraged Hopkins. ‘As if I don’t know who’s there, you weak bastard.’
Two replies came at once. Laughter broke out from the rear yard as a male voice from the other side of the door told her that it was the police. They were at opposite ends of the property, but he was still here—they could catch him if they were quick. She ran down the corridor, grabbed her keys en route and opened the front door. Two officers with stony faces stood before her. ‘What seems to be the problem, madam?’ one of the officers asked. ‘
He’s still here, in the backyard. Please come through, quick.’
The pair hesitated, then looked at each other, before following her through the house, waiting while she found the keys to the back door. She floundered, unable to find the right key.
‘Sorry, it’s here somewhere,’ she smiled as she looked back at the pair. Her smile disappeared. She felt sick and alone again.
‘That’s okay. You’re Libby, are you?’ asked the other officer, detecting her awkwardness.
‘Yes, Libby Masters, and the guy out there is Phillip Hopkins,’ she replied.
She found the key and opened the door, stepping back to allow the officers to enter the backyard first. The officers marched out, switching on the back light as they passed. Libby stood at the doorway as the men walked the perimeters of the yard, pointing their black steel torches over the fence.
‘I think he came in from where you are there,’ she said, nodding towards their position at the back fence, ‘That’s where I saw his light.’
‘Nothing here now,’ one of them replied.
‘He was here when you came to the front door though, he was laughing. He’s breaching the AVO I have out on him, you know. It’s a direct breach being here.’
The officers returned, speaking quietly as they grew closer. One handed her a brightly coloured plastic basketball—a child’s toy. They had found it by one of the fences. Libby took it in one hand and tried to think where she’d seen it before.
‘That must have been what he threw at the windows,’ Libby said, ‘I can give you his address if you want. You can track down the case.’
‘What good is that?’ said the more abrupt officer. ‘You told the emergency operator you couldn’t verify that it was this Hopley character.’
‘Hopkins his name is and yes, I know that. But you don’t know him, it had to be him.’
‘Well, that’s not going to get us a warrant,’ the officer said, slapping his torch in the palm of his hand. ‘We need more than that. A ball doesn’t prove he’s breached his AVO. I can’t see any reason for us to hang around here any longer; he’s obviously been scared off and won’t come back tonight—if it was him. We’ll camp up the end of the street for a short while and see what happens.’
Libby was dumbstruck, embarrassed and totally helpless. This could happen again and again and there was nothing she could do. The two police officers made their way down the corridor and out the front door.
‘If you want to make a statement, get down to the North Sydney Police Station sometime tomorrow, I’m on at three,’ said the second officer, the friendlier of the two, who handed Libby a card. ‘My nam
e’s Haddock. You can have a go at arguing the case for breach of AVO if you like.’
‘An AVO should be enforceable shouldn’t it? Especially as it’s based on an assault? He nearly killed me,’ Libby said. ‘He keeps breaching it and getting away with it!’
‘AVOs are a waste of time, that’s what they are,’ the first officer interjected.
‘Hey!’ scolded Haddock, then more softly, ‘It’s an Apprehended Domestic Violence Order Libby, that’s all. You can’t tell a court it’s been breached without proof, but if you come across something, or have him confess to it, or others claim he was here, you could get him put away for a little while.’
‘I’ve been through this over and over again. I’ve made so many statements. I’m sick of wasting my time.’
‘Listen, come down to the station tomorrow and I’ll explain everything. Coming to your home like this may force a magistrate to get tougher with him. Courts are a bit of a lottery but I may be able to help.’
‘Okay, I might do that.’
They left. Libby locked her door and turned out all the lights. She wanted to see but remain unseen. She stretched the telephone cord into her bedroom and positioned the phone precariously on her side table. She barricaded herself into the bedroom with an old Federation lock and key.
She felt a little safer, a little warmer, but was in no mood for sleep. Pulling out a novel from the top bedside drawer, she climbed under the doona.
The wind was now howling outside and all she could hear was her heart pounding and the frangipani scraping her bedroom window. She tried to read entirely under the doona using a book-light, but her mind was constantly wandering, reliving the past terrifying hour and planning her next move in case he dared to return.
She tried to read some more, but found herself nodding off and then jolting awake each time her book closed. She heard all the noises outside: the scratches on the window, the rattling of a tin roof a few doors up and the odd car, driving past her house. She could have sworn several engines sounded just like Phillip’s Laser and slowed down directly outside her front fence before speeding away.
It was now three o’clock in the morning and Libby knew that she’d only be able to catch three hours sleep at most. She wished it was earlier so she could sleep longer, in order to cope with her return to work. However, she was still so frightened that she was praying for dawn at the same time. She longed for the birds to begin chirping outside, signalling the start of a new, bright day, without the darkness and terror of the night. She placed her book on the table next to the bed, but baulked at turning off the reading light and decided to leave it on to keep her company. She cuddled up under the doona and was determined to fall asleep.
Her half-sleep was invaded by a loud crash, followed by a second crash. She tensed up and remained hidden under the covers.
No, not again, please, she thought to herself.
Then she heard a firm knock at the back door. She was beginning to sweat under the doona, her body shaking. A knock struck the bathroom window, followed by another knock at the kitchen window. Silence for ten seconds, then a knock at the spare room window, then a knock at the front window next to her bed. He was running around the damn house. She closed her eyes tight. She was trapped. He could enter whenever he wanted.
A loud thump came from the front door, then a knock at the bedroom window seconds later. She knew he’d have his torch on, that she’d see silhouettes at every window, but she didn’t dare raise her head above the covers. They remained so tightly shut she could see stars in the black abyss.
‘You’re going to pay, Libby. You can’t throw us away,’ came the whispered snarl from outside her front window. There was no doubt now, if she’d ever had any, that this was Phillip. She refused to reply, for fear of encouraging him or provoking him to enter her house in a rage. She had no defence, no plan, no way of stopping the knocking. What good would ringing the police do? Would they really come back after the first time?
Hopkins was circling the house, tapping and knocking on all the doors, all the windows. It lasted for twenty minutes, interspersed with one word, ‘Libby’, over and over and over again. He allowed just enough time between assaults on the house to startle Libby with each new sound. She felt as though she was in a horror movie, suffering an unremitting campaign of intimidation.
He doesn’t actually want to come in, she thought. He’s stalking me.
The word exploded into her consciousness. This was stalking. It was not merely a case of making her scared; she was being stalked, like she’d seen in those tele-movies and, once or twice, on the television news. She’d read how it had led to assaults and even murder. She remembered the row in the newspapers recently about laws designed to stop stalking, to prevent these personal campaigns of terror developing into violence. She was now more frightened than ever—and overheating, wet with fear. All of a sudden, the noises ceased.
Libby woke without sensing even a whisper of breeze. A bird chirped in a nearby tree. The creep must have gone; it must be dawn. More birds joined in the chorus. Three cars drove by. She slowly pulled her head out from under the doona. By now she was lathered in sweat. Slowly she unclenched her eyelids; they’d been shut so tightly for so long, that she had to peel them apart. Light crept through the slats in her venetians. Dawn had arrived like a rescue worker in a storm.
She lay motionless as the birds came out to play, as more cars drove by, as the sound of babies’ cries pierced the air. As the minutes ticked by, day broke and her fear was extinguished.
What the hell do I do now? she thought. Who can help me? How do I stop him? Where do I go? Her colleague and friend Shane Bailey, who’d stood up to Phillip on her behalf before, was interstate on assignment. Who will truly believe me? Why am I here, in this shitful position?
Libby began sobbing; her eyes were already sore and red from lack of sleep. She felt imprisoned—alone and terrorised. Her sobbing lasted almost 30 minutes, the long culmination of a full week of restrained tension and anxiousness. It was usually the most wonderful part of the day for her, the sun lifting her out of bed and bracing her for the day ahead, but she didn’t care anymore; she just didn’t care.
Her morning at the office, where she worked as an executive assistant, a job she usually loved, began disastrously: a cranky boss, wisecracking colleagues, a coffee spill and paranoia every time the phone rang. Libby knew she had nowhere to hide. He would undoubtedly track her movements from work if she left again for Melbourne and Anthony’s apartment. There was no way she wanted Anthony embroiled in this mess, the nights of stalking and the threats to anyone within cooee of her. And Anthony’s busy schedule meant that she’d be even more alone there than she would be here.
Eventually her mother decided, unusually, to ring her at work. Libby made it through 30 seconds of the conversation before breaking down. They decided that Libby would take the rest of the day off, pack up some things and move in with her parents at Balgowlah that afternoon.
The Masters’ home, like Libby’s, was more a typical Sydney cottage than a house. The block was narrow but quite long, with a fence out front. Most of the structure was weatherboard, apart from the front rooms, which were obviously part of the original building; a standard, brick Californian bungalow. The cottage was single storey and freestanding, with a newly renovated rear section including a large television room which led onto a laundry, spare room and veranda. As soon as Libby walked into the television room behind her mother, she saw immediately that the large glass doors onto the veranda had no curtains or coverings. All she could think of was how exposed she would be in the dark of night.
The backyard had a shed deep in the corner and a barbecue to one side. The back fence bordered another backyard and the area was covered in tall trees and shrubs. It was relatively dense terrain for a suburb so close to the city.
‘You can have the spare room love,’ her mother said as she opened the door and walked to the window to let in some air. ‘We’ve put your old bed in h
ere, but I didn’t think it’d be used so soon.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’
Libby’s face was pale, her eyes puffy. She was wrecked, in every way. She threw down her two overnight bags and climbed onto the bed. Her mother told her when her father was due home. The last thing she heard before nodding off to sleep was something about when dinner would be served.
When Libby awoke, it was pitch-dark. The blackness startled her and she scrambled to turn on the bedside lamp. There was a window on one side of the room, cloaked by a thick curtain. On the other side, there was a row of four small push-out, slat windows high up towards the ceiling. She peered through bleary eyes at an old digital clock beside the bed. It was eleven—she calculated that she’d just slept for nine hours.
Being in the same house as her parents made her long to go back in time, back to that familiar school-age safety zone—back to a time when she still had a chance to avoid the mistakes of adulthood, namely any association with Phillip Hopkins.
‘Sorry I slept so long,’ Libby said as she stumbled into the dining room, where her father was reading and her mother was mending a pair of his work shorts. ‘
That’s okay love,’ her mother said.
‘You’ll sleep your life away girl,’ said her father in a cynical but playful tone, his head only partially turning towards his daughter.
Libby’s father stood to give her a kiss with a smile. Alex Masters never interfered when it came to his daughter’s many boyfriends, but he’d never been keen on the ‘rich kid’, Phillip Hopkins, and he had mentioned it. He didn’t bring up her problems, though, that night at their late dinner, while Libby picked at what was left of her shrunken and dry plate of roast lamb and vegetables.
Libby spent two quiet nights at her parent’s home at Balgowlah, before venturing out for dinner with her girlfriend Sarah on the Wednesday. They didn’t dine at their favourite Thai restaurant in nearby Neutral Bay; Libby was too fragile to be anywhere remotely accessible to Hopkins.
