Sixty Seconds

by Jesse Blackadder

  My aunts and uncles and cousins were sorry for me, but it was like they didn’t know me. ‘You’re so much taller,’ everyone said. I wasn’t. I just looked older suddenly. I could see it in the mirror. Most of them hadn’t seen us since we’d left Tassie at the start of the year. Toby wasn’t even two then. They didn’t know how he’d started talking and suddenly there’d been a person inside that little body. They didn’t know how he’d say something and you’d look at him and think: So that’s been going on in there.

  And it was like I didn’t know anyone either. Especially Dad and Mum. Dad sat me down the day after and tried to tell me what happened. He could hardly talk. The gate somehow got left unlatched – something to do with that gizmo thing – and Toby somehow got into the pool and somehow no one saw it in time. It was an accident, he said. A terrible accident.

  The white coffin. The voice of the celebrant. The sound of people behind me crying.

  This doesn’t happen to us. This happens to other people.

  It was a stupid thing to think. But it wouldn’t get out of my head. I’d read about bad stuff in the papers, I’d felt sorry for those people whose lives had been wrecked, and then I’d forgotten them. And now we were them.

  When the celebrant paused, I snuck a look over my shoulder. There were about five rows of kids from my class at school. Laura Fieldman was in the middle of the third row, looking right at me.

  FINN

  I have spoken to family and friends who knew Toby. In his short life he made an impact on everyone he met. Beloved by his immediate and extended family, Toby was an enthusiastic, excited and adventurous little boy. Toby’s parents have asked his Uncle Conor to say some words on their behalf.

  It never occurred to Finn his father wouldn’t come. But since the first phone call, when Finn broke down completely trying to convey the news, he hadn’t spoken to his father. He’d called, but John could never come to the phone. Helen, who’d stayed in Hobart to be with him, took the calls and tried to reassure Finn. ‘He’s in shock,’ she said. ‘You know he’d be there if he could.’

  Edmund and Conor, his agent and his brother, were the ones who stuck hard by him. They let him go only at the end of each evening, when he dragged himself upstairs and joined Bridget and they lay in numb silence. Finn would grope for her hand, or pull her into his arms. They’d cry together. But it was like she wasn’t really there.

  Even today, as they’d dodged hurriedly into the front row of the chapel, Bridget had let him go in first and then allowed Jarrah to sit between them. There was no arrangement of their reduced family that could be right for this, but Finn wished Bridget were next to him. He couldn’t even see her properly.

  When the celebrant nodded at Conor to indicate it was time for him to come up and speak, Finn glanced back as Conor stood. As they’d walked in, he’d half noticed the chapel was crowded, but he saw now there wasn’t an empty seat anywhere. People were standing at the back. Apart from the people in the first two rows, Finn knew no one.

  As Conor fumbled with his notes and tried to steady his voice, Finn found himself blanking out.

  Home was Hobart. How had he ever thought he could live elsewhere? They’d had friends, good friends. Family. He hadn’t been able to walk around the Farm Gate Market on a Sunday morning without stopping every few metres to catch up with someone. Hobart knew them. He hadn’t put in the effort up north. Thought there’d be plenty of time once they settled. He hadn’t made a single proper friend, he realised. He was an alien in Murwillumbah. It had been wrong from the start.

  He had to collect Toby’s ashes and then figure out how to get the family back home. He’d take what remained of his son and they’d climb the mountain and scatter him at the top and know that he looked over them always.

  Sandra had called, the day after Toby died. The news must have flashed around Hobart and found her. Finn’s sister Mary, tasked with answering the endlessly ringing phone at their house this past week, had come and found him with the handset.

  ‘Oh, Finn,’ Sandra said when he took it. Two words, full of compassion, and they were enough to bring him undone.

  He took the phone outside, onto the grass, and she waited silently on the end of the line while he sobbed, and even the silence was somehow different, was somehow laden with knowing and understanding and not needing words.

  After what felt like forever, Finn recovered enough to blow his nose and breathe.

  ‘I’ll come, if you want me,’ she said.

  Finn had looked up at the house. Bridget stood in the doorway. She wasn’t even watching him. She was staring blankly into the far corner of the garden, as if he didn’t exist.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  Sandra paused. ‘Hans can’t understand why I’m not there. He sends his love to you both. God, I’m sorry it’s such a mess. I wish I could just get on a plane. I wish I could help.’

  Finn heaved a shuddering sigh.

  ‘Should I call her?’

  Finn looked over at Bridget again. ‘I don’t think she can handle anything else.’

  ‘If it feels right, tell her I’m sending my love.’

  ‘I’d better go,’ he’d said. Hung up and felt the most alone he’d ever been.

  Except, perhaps, for the funeral. As Conor read, Finn heard the sounds of weeping echoing through the chapel. People who didn’t know them, who didn’t know him or Toby or their family. Were they the same ones who came in the night and laid down flowers and teddy bears and battery-powered candles in little glasses? The ones who’d left the notes about their little angel, the ones who’d promised to pray for them, who’d turned the front fence into a shrine?

  He didn’t want it, this kindness from strangers.

  BRIDGET

  We weren’t expecting another baby in the family, and Toby was the one who brought us all together, especially his poppa, who can’t be here today. His favourite thing was being read to, and I’d like to share a few words from the book he loved the most.

  Here is what you know.

  That you cannot tell your mother. Tell her once, and you will have to tell her over and over. You’ve decided to simply say ‘He couldn’t come today’ if she notices Toby’s absence.

  That Jarrah is stronger than either you or Finn. He’ll get through this.

  That the Brennan family blames you. No matter how much Finn explains the malfunctioning gate mechanism, his change of routine, his proximity to the pool – in their minds, you left Toby alone. You can see it in their eyes.

  You are grateful to Conor, though. It’s unthinkable that you or Finn could actually speak at Toby’s funeral, and somehow Finn’s older brother manages his short speech about Toby on behalf of the family, reading it doggedly from the page, pausing to breathe deeply and wipe his eyes, amidst the muffled sounds of crying.

  It’s not you crying. You’re frozen. You suppose it could have gone the other way – the funeral might have coincided with your wild weeping, those unpredictable moments that bring a little relief. It feels like you should cry at this terribly public moment.

  For half the town, it seems, has blown into the chapel on the winds of this blustery day for Toby’s funeral. Behind Tasmanian family and friends at the front stretch rows of strange, sympathetic faces. Chen, close to the front but not in the inner circle of family, not today. Some of your other colleagues. Students from Jarrah’s school. Meredith, who seems to have been at your house every day, and one of the paramedics, whose name you will never remember but whose face you’ll never forget. The rest – you have no idea. The curious and the sorrowful, the invisible bringers of food and flowers, come to glance respectfully at the tiny white coffin, blink away a few tears, and thank their deity, if they believe, that this hasn’t happened to them.

  Have you slept yet?

  You couldn’t on the first night. As if it were the ultimate abandonment of Toby. Some time in the tiny hours Finn fell into a fitful slumber, his snores ripping the air apart, leaving you alone to
hate him. By first light you knew what to do. You rose and padded through the house on bare feet, past Edmund, who’d flown in late and was asleep on the couch. You slid open the glass door and headed across the damp grass. In the garage you found what you were looking for, hefty and satisfying in your hands. You carried it back to the house, mounted the steps, and approached Finn’s contraption, hanging in its shining obscenity on the wall. You raised the sledgehammer above your head with a strength you’d forgotten you had and let it fall. The first blow smashed through the morning, rocking the timbers of the house from top to bottom and setting shrieking birds a-flight. It was the first thing that had felt right in the twenty-one hours since Toby died, and so you raised the sledgehammer and hit again. The clockwork crumpled and sagged, the sound smashing through the sleepy neighbourhood, the stupid owl’s all-seeing eyes shattered.

  Because shortly after midnight, fifteen and a half hours after Toby drowned, Finn had told you. Said it was his fault, the thing must have malfunctioned and left the gate open behind him when he went through to the studio, he’d forgotten to tell you it was playing up because he’d meant to fix it; all culpability was his.

  ‘But it was shut,’ you said. ‘I saw it. That’s why I looked for him upstairs first.’

  He’d shaken his head. ‘It must have closed behind him. It’s my fault.’

  You lifted the sledgehammer again and let it fall, burying its head deep in the splintered weatherboards, where it jammed. Then Finn’s hands were on your shoulders and he was drawing you back, unwrapping your fingers from the handle.

  ‘There are live wires in there,’ he said.

  You had a wild urge to tear yourself out of his grip, reach in and grasp those wires. It would be a quick death, quick enough that you could find Toby, wherever he was.

  Except: you know there is nothing after death. You’re a scientist, and there’s no evidence that life continues in any form. All that was Toby has been snuffed out.

  You wanted to crumple into Finn, but with his own hands he built the contraption that killed your son, and you couldn’t bear those hands on you. You pulled away and stalked down the verandah, past tousle-haired Edmund standing with a blanket around his shoulders, past Jarrah emerging from the house with dark-circled eyes. You stalked past them all, into the kitchen, and then, because you could think of not one other thing in the world to do, you put the kettle on.

  How would you now spend the hours?

  Finn followed you into the kitchen, picked up the stupid Atomic and began his morning coffee ritual, the one that had started your days since forever.

  ‘We need to ring a funeral home,’ he said, once the thing was on the stove.

  You kept your back turned. The kitchen smelled of food, the linger of cooking and the two casseroles and batch of scones dropped off anonymously just hours after Toby died, now jamming up the fridge, barely picked at.

  ‘Do you want me to take care of it?’ He spoke to the back of your head.

  ‘I think you’ve taken care of enough.’ You didn’t see if he flinched under the cruelty of your words. ‘I’ll do it. Are you thinking burial or cremation?’

  He made a sound that could only be described as a whimper, a sound that would once have devastated you, and part of you marvelled at how you could do that to him, while the rest of you considered ways to hurt him more.

  ‘The detective gave me a number,’ he said. ‘A funeral place.’

  ‘Good. I’ll call them.’

  You wouldn’t, you decided some time in that first night, allow Finn to be in charge of anything. You had to set your course to steer through this, a hard and straight course through night and day, in and out of the roaring, terrible weeks and years ahead, and all you can do is hold to that course and see what remains at the end.

  Conor comes back to your pew and squeezes in next to Finn, who reaches dumbly across and hugs him sideways. The thing is nearly over. The celebrant says a few more words you don’t hear. You take your last look at Toby’s coffin. You’ve made sure it won’t roll behind the curtains at the end – such an awful melodramatic touch, you’ve thought at the few cremations you’ve attended before. It didn’t occur to you that, instead, you will be the one turning and walking away from him.

  You stand. Flanked by the Brennan family, you turn and walk down the aisle through the bowed heads. You walk out into the soaking spring rain that’s blown in from the sea. The Brennans have lost it completely, and you are losing it too. Thank God for Edmund and Chen, who come to your side like sheepdogs and herd you towards the waiting white cars.

  ‘Are we supposed to wait?’ you manage to ask.

  ‘You don’t need to do anything.’ Edmund puts up his hand in front of you as a flash fires. The local media, in which the story has led the news all week. ‘Please respect the privacy of the family,’ he calls. To you: ‘Get in the car. The people who know you will come home.’

  That picture does end up in Saturday’s paper. The three of you – Finn, you, Jarrah – clinging to each other, hair rain-slicked, like shipwreck survivors. All looking in different directions.

  PART TWO

  JARRAH

  Time after Toby: seven days. Alarm rang at six forty-five. I’d set it in case I somehow slept after four, which didn’t happen. Showered. Dressed in the plainest outfit possible. Picked up my bag from where it’d sat, untouched, for a week in the corner. Headed to the kitchen. Hesitated before walking in. I hadn’t been alone with her, or with Dad. There’d always been someone around. And that had been kind of good.

  She was at the table, in her work clothes, holding a mug of tea. She held out an arm to hug me. I let her do it for a moment then pulled away.

  ‘You sure you’re OK to go back?’ she asked.

  Nodded. ‘You?’

  ‘I’ve got to do something.’

  Knew what she meant. Started getting out my breakfast stuff. ‘What about Dad?’

  ‘Edmund’s going to help him today, get back to work on his sculptures, I guess.’

  Poured the cereal, added milk. Far as I knew, Dad hadn’t been back in his studio. The pool area had been locked with a bike chain and padlock since the police took off the tape. I was kinda glad Edmund had stuck around to sleep on the couch.

  Made a second bowl of cereal and put it in front of Mum. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He and Ed have gone for a walk. Won’t be long. Do you want to wait and say goodbye?’

  It was seven twenty-two. I wanted to get to school before the crowd. Walking into the funeral had been bad enough – everyone staring, no escape.

  Kissed her on the cheek. ‘Tell him I said bye.’

  Everything was weirdly normal as I wheeled my bike out of the shed. From outside I was the same kid who’d ridden to school exactly a week earlier. But some other kid had done three and a bit terms there. Some other kid had spent his lunchtimes running away to hide, as though being bullied was the worst thing that could happen to him.

  It was a fifteen-minute ride to school. Time to practise wiping Toby from my thoughts. Practise not attracting attention. Practise keeping my face blank. I was good at the last two. But everyone from school had seen me bawling my eyes out at Toby’s funeral. Little Mummy. There’d be no hiding now.

  School was nearly empty. I locked my bike, strolled through deserted corridors, opened my locker with a clang that echoed along the hall. Dumped my pack on the ground and started unloading.

  ‘Jarrah?’

  Spun around to face Laura Fieldman and two of her long-legged friends. They must have been casing my locker, waiting. This had to be bad.

  ‘We’re so sorry about your brother, Jarrah.’ Laura came closer and put her hand on my arm. The two girls behind her, whose names I hazily thought were Jade and Eve or Evelyn or something, were nodding with the same sympathetic looks on their faces that everyone in the world now used on me.

  ‘It must be so awful for you. I can hardly imagine. But Jarrah, we’re here for you, OK?’

&
nbsp; ‘Um. Right.’

  ‘D’you want to come and sit with us till the bell?’

  ‘OK.’

  It felt like a set-up. Gathered up my books and shoved my bag in the locker. Laura linked her arm in mine and led me down the hall and the other girls followed us out to one of the desirable alcoves that lined the playground. Laura pulled me down next to her.

  ‘We copied some notes so you can catch up,’ she said. ‘I mean, like I’m sure they’ll make allowances for the exams, but it might help.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  I don’t remember what else we talked about until the bell rang. The only clear thing was Laura looking at me with her deep brown eyes, saying, ‘You’re so brave.’

  Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t a set-up. I’d expected Laura to lead me to the pack, to be torn to bits. But she and her friends stuck to me the whole day. Lots of the girls in the class, and even a few of the boys, came up throughout the day to add to the sympathy. People I’d never spoken to – whose names I didn’t know – hugged me, or patted my back or my shoulder. Dave and his creepy mates ignored me. Billy, previously the closest thing I’d had to a friend, came up at lunchtime.

  ‘Hi, Jarrah,’ he mumbled, red-faced.

  I hadn’t heard anything after the one text, though I’d seen him at the funeral. I’d presumed he had no idea what to say to me. I’d have been the same, in his position.

  ‘Hi, Billy.’

  He looked helplessly at the girls flanking me. ‘Um, how’s it going?’

  ‘OK.’

  There was an awkward silence as we both realised he couldn’t hitch a lift with me on this rise in importance. Laura and co had taken me and left him behind, and that was it.

  ‘I’ll see you round,’ he said at last.

  ‘Yeah, good,’ I said. We looked at each other a bit desperately, but I couldn’t help him. Later, when things went back to normal, I’d find him again.