The Bridge

by Enza Gandolfo

  ‘I am so sorry,’ she said yet again. ‘I wish I could —’

  ‘What do you wish, Mandy? What? That you could go back and do things differently that night? Is that what you wish? Do you know what I wish? Do you know what I lie in bed wishing?’ Rae had dropped her arms by her side, her hands in tight fists. ‘I wish it was your daughter and not mine. That’s what I wish, Mandy. That’s what I wish.’

  There was more despair than anger in Rae’s words. Of course. Of course: a life for a life.

  ‘But mostly I wish I was dead too. Because this pain will only stop when I die.’

  Mandy could not speak. There were no words.

  ‘I want my daughter’s things. Everything. I don’t want Jo to have anything. Do you understand?’

  Mandy took a couple of short sharp breaths so she could speak. ‘Of course. I don’t know what she’s —’

  ‘Do you understand? Everything.’ Rae turned around to head for the gate, but then she turned back. ‘I trusted you with my daughter — all those years, I trusted you. My daughter trusted your daughter. I don’t want any of you at the funeral. I don’t want any of you near us.’ She stared at Mandy, waiting for a response.

  ‘Of course,’ Mandy said.

  Rae walked down the path and through the gate. On the footpath, she hesitated. She looked up at the bridge and began to walk towards it, changed her mind, and headed the other way, back into Yarraville.

  Mandy shut the door and began to sob. She felt herself collapsing — she couldn’t keep upright and let herself slip to the ground.

  ‘Jesus. Mandy, are you okay?’ Sarah asked as she came towards Mandy, offering her hand.

  ‘No. No, not really,’ Mandy said, burying her head in her arms. She remembered the moment long ago, sitting on her mother’s bed as Sal took her last breath. She remembered the despair, the overwhelming sense of loss, of knowing her mother would never again open her eyes, would never again speak to her, hold her, that her mother was gone. She’d climbed onto the bed next to her dead mother and hours later, when her father tried to move her, she’d raged and howled and her father had to call the doctor. The doctor, an older man, had tried to coax her out of the bed. ‘People die,’ he’d said to her. ‘Your mother was in a lot of pain, and she is not anymore.’ It had struck her as such a stupid thing to say. ‘How the fuck do you know?’ she yelled at him. She remembered that he’d given her an injection and she’d woken up the next day in her own bed and the house had never ever felt like a home again.

  She understood that Rae was crumbling under the weight of her grief. She understood that it was her fault and Jo’s fault and that they were responsible for Ashleigh’s death and they always would be, and there was nothing either of them could do to change that. Death was shocking and unjust. So hard to give up those we love. Rae and Alex would go on living, but they would carry with them the loss of their daughter — an unbearable loss from which they would never recover.

  Chapter 14

  When Mandy finally calmed, she and Sarah went back to the kitchen. Sarah put the kettle on and made Mandy a cup of tea.

  ‘She was so sad. Ashleigh is — was — a beautiful young woman. She was so clever and talented. I loved her too, I did. She was a little wild sometimes, but … She was Rae’s daughter. To lose a daughter: it’s impossible.’ Mandy’s voice rose again in a sob. ‘I feel sad and angry and ashamed and guilty. And all those feelings, they’re just my feelings, and she’s right that they don’t matter.’

  ‘Of course they matter, Mandy. They matter, but not to Rae. She has her grief to deal with and you have yours. You didn’t do anything wrong. You thought they’d be okay. It was a misjudgement.’

  ‘That cost Ashleigh her life.’

  Sarah sighed. ‘No point continuing down that track, Mandy. It doesn’t lead anywhere you want to go.’

  ‘I don’t know where I want to go.’

  Mandy remembered the months after her mother’s death: the drinking and the partying with David, all of it to escape. To forget. But it had been impossible to forget.

  ‘Rae doesn’t want us at the funeral,’ Mandy continued. ‘I’ve been thinking about the funeral and what to do, whether we should go or not. I thought that Jo would want to go, but I haven’t asked her.’

  ‘It’s best if neither of you go, don’t you think? Everyone will be angry at Jo and it could get out of hand.’

  ‘No, we can’t go if Rae doesn’t want us there, of course. But I … Ashleigh was Jo’s best friend. I know Jo is responsible, but she needs to say her goodbyes too. But it can’t be at the funeral.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Jo will have to gather everything that she has that belonged to Ashleigh. Do it now, today. Rae doesn’t want us to have anything that belonged to her daughter.’

  ‘What does Jo have that belonged to Ashleigh?’

  ‘Lots of things, I guess. They swapped clothes and jewellery and make-up and left them at each other’s places. They kept things at each other’s houses so that we — Rae and I — wouldn’t find out about them. Silly things, expensive clothes they thought we’d disapprove of. Ashleigh came in track pants and a t-shirt that night, with her other clothes thrown over her arm and in a bag. I ironed her skirt for her while they did their nails and make-up. She wore Jo’s top to the party, so I guess her clothes are here.’

  Mandy pulled the album closer and flicked through several pages until she reached photos of Jo and Ashleigh at high school. The photographs of Ashleigh printed in the newspapers after the accident had been taken at her eighteenth birthday party. Ashleigh’s long auburn hair was braided. She’d worn dangling silver earrings and dark red lipstick. In the album, there were photographs of Ashleigh and Jo in school uniform, on rollerskates, at a picnic, at birthday parties and school camps.

  Mandy lifted an acetate sheet and picked up a photograph of the two girls, aged thirteen or fourteen, already young women. They were wearing running gear and red t-shirts, each with a number pasted across their waist. ‘They fought sometimes, but they made up. Whatever else they were battling against, they seemed to be solid. I mean, Ashleigh was like part of our family. I watched her grow up. I took them both shopping for their first bras. I took them to swimming lessons and watched them sing silly songs at too many school concerts.’

  ‘Mandy, do you think their friendship was as solid recently?’

  ‘I don’t know, Sarah. Ashleigh was more confident. More popular. Jo is … She needs reassuring; I’m not good at that. She’s not as strong.’ She paused. ‘Friendships are like marriages — they look different from the outside. That night — it seems so long ago, but it’s less than a week — it was a lovely night, it was, and they were happy and having fun.’ Mandy continued taking photos out of the album, arranging them and rearranging them on the table until they formed a large collage. There were more photographs of Jo with Ashleigh than of Jo with Mandy.

  ‘I took a photo of them when they were dressed. They were so beautiful. It was on Ashleigh’s phone. She promised she’d send it to me. They were drinking. I remember thinking they’re old enough and even though I thought I should tell them to slow down, I didn’t. I didn’t want to have a fight with Jo. I wanted her to enjoy herself. So instead, I fed them. I hoped the food would soak up some of the alcohol. They ate, but not much. They were twirling around in front of the mirror, asking each other, Do I look okay in this? Sarah, they were being young. Young and stupid. Weren’t we all young and stupid? It’s so unfair.’

  Sarah reached over and put her hand on Mandy’s hand. ‘I’d like to talk to Jo, get to know her a bit better,’ Sarah said. ‘I can talk to her about the funeral and about Ashleigh’s things, if you like.’

  ‘Okay. I’d appreciate that. Her room is at the front,’ Mandy said, getting up to lead Sarah back along the narrow hallway, towards the front of the house, past the lounge, where the television was projec
ting to an empty room. Past an old stereo and a bookshelf with an odd selection of books — novels, science and history textbooks, the rules for netball — and on the top shelf several crystal animals and a set of china-and-glass bells, all sitting on a long white doily.

  ‘That’s Jo’s room.’ Mandy pointed at a closed door. ‘I don’t know how she’ll be about the funeral, about Ashleigh’s things.’

  Mandy waited as Sarah knocked on the door.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s Sarah. She needs to talk to you.’

  ‘Sarah?’ Jo said.

  ‘Sarah, your lawyer.’

  After a long pause, Jo replied. ‘Okay. Give me a minute.’

  Sarah heard Jo getting out of bed and moving around the room. She gestured at the ornaments on the shelf. ‘When I was in high school, a friend’s mother had ornaments like these on the mantle. We called the mantelpiece Ada’s zoo,’ Sarah said.

  ‘I’ve never been much of a collector of anything. I think I must’ve admired some ornaments like these once and Jo decided I was into them, so she’s been buying them for me for Christmas or my birthday. She says I’m hard to buy for.’

  ‘You don’t like them?’ Sarah said, picking up a tiny mouse and holding it up to the light. Miniature rainbows formed on the wall.

  ‘They’re okay. I like the way the light hits them. Does your friend collect them — like her mother?’

  ‘My friend died a few years ago,’ Sarah said quietly. She didn’t know why she was telling Mandy.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Mandy reached her hand out to touch Sarah’s shoulder. She held it there for a moment, and then, as if realising she’d overstepped some invisible boundary, moved her hand away.

  ‘I haven’t been to her house for a long time,’ Sarah continued. ‘Last time I went was after the funeral. Her mother had cleared all of the ornaments off the mantle, and in their place was a framed photograph of Ada, a crucifix, and a wick burning in a glass half-filled with oil.’

  This house isn’t a home, Ada’s mother had told Sarah. How could she do this to us? How am I supposed to go on living?

  ‘I don’t usually talk about Ada.’ Sarah paused, surprised at how raw and close her grief remained even after all this time.

  When Sarah visited Ada’s mother, they sat together on the couch; Mrs Haris held her hands and they both cried. Sarah was so angry at Ada, but also angry at herself — maybe there was something she could’ve done to save Ada. She was angry at Ada’s mother too: wasn’t a mother supposed to know? Sarah remembered noticing that the crystal ornaments were no longer on the mantel. And wanting to ask about the black Greek urn that Ada’s grandmother had brought with her when she came to Australia, about the framed cross-stitch with a map of Greece inside a map of Australia, and the wind-up clown on a unicycle that was the first thing Nick had pinched. ‘Mum thinks it was a gift from one of his friends,’ Ada had told her.

  Those ornaments were so different to the objects Sarah’s mother collected; the only objects allowed in her parents’ house were original. Original. Her mother loved that word. ‘These are original, one of a kind,’ she said and gave the history of the object, when it was made, by who, and where. She never said, ‘Of course it cost a packet’ — to talk about money was crude — but it was implied, and everyone understood.

  ‘It must be nice to be surrounded by beautiful things,’ people had said to Sarah when she still lived at home. Sarah didn’t tell anyone except Ada how much she hated it. If you were lucky enough to have so much, the least you could do was be grateful.

  Sarah shook one of the glass bells, the Christmasy tinkling echoed down the hallway, too light, too frivolous. She felt the urge to keep confiding in Mandy, to tell her how much she hated walking around her parents’ house — how she seemed unable to estimate the size of herself and was constantly knocking into tables and couches. She had a series of bruises on her hips from the sharp corners of her own table. But at her parents’ house, everything was worth money, a great deal of money; everything was irreplaceable. If she broke something, which she’d done from time to time — an English vase from the 1800s, a fine china teacup from a set like the ones in the Lodge — her mother would scream, get on her knees, and pick up each piece as if it were gold. She’d give Sarah that look: How in the hell did I end up with a daughter like you?

  Mandy’s bell was cheap, replaceable. There were hundreds of them in bargain and gift shops, at the big trash-and-treasure markets. It’s the thought that counts. But for Sarah’s mother it wasn’t the thought that counted. ‘That’s what people say,’ she’d told Sarah, ‘when they are too cheap to buy a worthy gift.’ Sarah put the bell back on the doily.

  The door opened. ‘You can come in,’ Jo said.

  The blinds were pulled down. The curtains were drawn. The only light in the room came in through the opened door behind Sarah. It took a few minutes for her eyes to adjust and for objects in the room to emerge. A desk with a computer. A dresser. Two chairs. There were clothes and a stack of books on the floor. There was a wardrobe and a bed, on the edge of which Jo tentatively perched. In the kitchen the outside world had been silent, but in the bedroom there was no escape: cars and trucks driving past, the click of the traffic lights, the voices of cyclists and pedestrians.

  ‘Sorry, it’s a mess,’ Jo whispered.

  Sarah left the door slightly ajar and walked around the clothes on the floor to sit on the bed next to Jo. Jo’s hair was a mess of tangles. ‘Do you mind if I open the curtains?’

  ‘I prefer the dark,’ she said quickly.

  ‘Okay.’

  A melancholia pervaded the room like a fog hovering low over a valley.

  ‘I heard the doorbell earlier?’

  ‘Ashleigh’s mother.’

  ‘She came here? Why? I didn’t think she’d come here.’

  ‘She doesn’t want you or your mother at the funeral. I know it might sound harsh,’ Sarah said.

  ‘I didn’t know if I could go. Whether I’d be allowed to go. I don’t know if I could go even if they let me. I can’t … I can’t imagine …’ There was a tremor in her voice. She paused. ‘I can’t believe she’s dead.’

  ‘It’s sad. It must be difficult for you. We don’t expect young people to die, it’s always shocking.’

  ‘I never, ever thought about Ash dying. I thought about my mother dying, my father, my grandmother, all sorts of people, but never Ash. I keep thinking I should run around to Ash’s house to tell her about this bad nightmare I had, about her dying. And Ash would tell me off for killing her in my sleep, and we’d be laughing about it.’

  ‘That’s tough. There’s one other thing. Ashleigh’s mother wants the stuff you have that belonged to her daughter.’

  ‘Does she hate me? I’m sure they all hate me.’

  ‘She’s grieving for her daughter. She’s sad.’

  ‘What does she want?’

  ‘Anything that belonged to Ashleigh.’

  ‘Her clothes are here … and her make-up, and other things … We’re always leaving things.’ Jo’s voice softened back to a whisper. ‘I keep thinking she’ll race through the door, she’ll be laughing. Telling me it was some joke.’

  ‘That would be a cruel joke. Did Ashleigh play jokes on you?’

  ‘Do I have to give her everything?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, Jo, you do. Legally, everything belongs to Ashleigh’s mother. I know you were friends. I’m sure that Ashleigh would like you to have something of hers, but I doubt she had a will, and at this point, it’s better if you do what her mother asks.’

  ‘So I have to do it now.’

  ‘Yes. I can help you. Can we turn on a light? The bedside lamp.’

  ‘Okay.’

  The small fluorescent lamp radiated a yellow light that gave the room a jaundiced pallor. Even in the dimness Sarah could see Jo’s face was pale, t
he shadows under her eyes deep purple. They both turned to scan the untidy piles of clothes on the floor, in front of the wardrobe, at the end of the bed, hanging over both chairs. Picking up a backpack that was leaning against the desk, Jo opened the zipper. ‘This is Ash’s,’ she said. ‘We can put things in here.’

  Sarah held the bag open as Jo moved slowly around the room. She picked up a pair of track pants, shook them, folded them, and dropped them into the bag. She did the same with a t-shirt and jacket. Rummaging under the bed, she emerged with a plastic bag, in which she put a pair of white thongs.

  Numerous bottles, tubes, and containers were scattered across the top of the dressing table. ‘We shared our make-up. Not sure what is hers and what is mine.’ Selecting one of the two make-up bags, the green one, Jo gathered lipsticks, eyebrow pencils, brushes, tubes of shiny cream and foundation, and stuffed them into the bag until it was overflowing. She crammed in as much as possible and did up the zipper and passed it to Sarah. She picked up two pairs of earrings and a ring. Sarah slipped them into the side pocket of the bag and zipped it up.

  Jo slid the wardrobe doors open and pushed aside dresses and shirts; clothes fell off hangers and onto the floor. ‘They only had one in the shop,’ she said, holding up black jacket with a row of silver studs on each shoulder. ‘We both wanted our own one. We bought it half each. Do you think I should give her this?’ Jo brought the jacket up to her face and closed her eyes.

  ‘You could keep that one.’

  Jo didn’t move. ‘It’s so soft. And it smells like Ash, her perfume: Be Delicious.’ But she folded it and handed it to Sarah, who put it in the bag.

  ‘Is there anything else?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jo said. ‘I can’t think what else now.’

  ‘Okay, this will do.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to hurt Ash. Please tell them I’m sorry.’

  ‘Have you thought about school? I could arrange for you to sit the exams,’ Sarah said.

  ‘No. Oh no, I couldn’t do that,’ Jo said.