by Fleur Beale
‘We thought you’d feel safer away from tall buildings,’ Grandy said. ‘We’ll stay here in the country for a week and then we’ll decide what to do.’
They tucked me into bed in a room with a ceiling fan. When I woke up the sun was hot.
The grandparents had food plus a heap of tourist brochures spread out on the table. ‘We’ve eaten,’ Nana said. ‘Help yourself.’
I made a sandwich – tomato, cheese, ham and pickle. Then I made another one. ‘This is so good.’ I hadn’t relished my food like this for months. Maybe this holiday – sick leave – wasn’t such a stupid idea after all.
‘Where are we?’ In the middle of nowhere, by the look of it. All I could see was farmland and a few houses in the distance.
‘We’re in the Lockyer Valley.’ Grandy slid a map across the table. ‘See? Here.’ He pointed a pen at a spot, then moved it to a circle labelled Laidley. ‘That’s our nearest town. We’ll go there in a minute to stock up on food.’
I felt myself relaxing as we tootled along country roads into Laidley. I felt safe, this place felt safe.
Even when we got back and I noticed some of the trees near the house had trunks blackened by bush-fires, I didn’t panic. Nana saw me looking at them. ‘I don’t think we need to worry about fires right now.’ She pointed at the sky, where thunderous rainclouds were already drenching the far hills.
The storm reached us not long after. I ran outside onto the lawn, whirling and dancing in the sluicing rain. The grandparents laughed and videoed me. ‘Put that on Facebook and you’re dead!’
So everything was going brilliantly, even when a couple of days later Grandy announced we were going to a lake in search of fauna. I thought about it for half a second. Snakes, scorpions, poisonous spiders – whatever. I’d survived thousands of earthquakes. A bit of wildlife wasn’t going to faze me.
We left early because my grandparents didn’t know how to lie in bed and laze in the mornings, so I was still mostly asleep when we got to the lake.
‘Where’s the fauna?’ I couldn’t see anything flying, running or swimming. ‘It’s too early. All sensible fauna is still tucked up and snoring.’
Grandy pointed at the middle of the lake. ‘How about that?’
‘It’s a swan, Grandy. Swans don’t come under the heading of exotic fauna.’ Actually, it was a pretty weird-looking swan. I glanced at the grandparents. They grinned back at me – the sort of grin that said they knew something I didn’t.
‘What?’ I took another look at the fauna. ‘Hey! That swan’s a pelican!’ I instantly forgave them for the early morning. A pelican! How cool was that!
Nana started walking. ‘I reckon that clump of white birds down the end on the shore are probably pelicans too. Worth a look, anyway.’
It wasn’t the most picturesque walk I’ve ever been on. We had to walk down a muddy track dodging thigh-high weeds but not to worry – we were on a pelican hunt.
‘Yep! Pelicans!’ A whole bunch of them – twenty at least. Every now and then one of them would tip his head back and clack his beak in a huge yawn. Go, pelicans!
We couldn’t get really close because a sludgy stream got in the way, but I didn’t mind. It was just fun standing there watching them do nothing much – until I got to the stage of wishing they’d get active. Time to go. I turned around. The grandparents were halfway back to the car. Between me and them was the wasteland of weeds. Snakes lived in undergrowth like that. Poisonous spiders, scorpions and stonking great lizards. Huh! Wildlife I could handle.
I got back to the grandparents with a huge grin on my face. ‘Fantastic fauna, Grandy. What else have you got?’
‘Coffee in town,’ Nana said. ‘Then we’d better go back and put our muddy clothes in the wash.’
Yeah. We were a bit grubby. Quite grubby, actually, but when we got back to the house there would be running water in the shower and a washing machine that worked.
The coffee, when we found a place that was open, was good and so was my hot chocolate and the croissants with apricot jam. We drank, ate and drove back to our house before the sun was properly out of bed. But that was my grandparents – got to be up and doing. Couldn’t lie in bed half the day, especially not when there was mud to be tramped through and pelicans to be found.
Grandy shoved our grubby gear into the washing machine and set it going. I scrubbed the mud of Australia off my shoes and propped them up on the verandah to dry in the sun. Give me mud over liquefaction sludge any old day of the week.
‘How does the idea of a proper breakfast appeal?’ Nana asked.
‘Eggs? Bacon? Tomatoes?’ Oh yes, that appealed all right.
She laughed and told me to bring the eggs.
I grabbed them out of the fridge and the house started to shake. No! I dropped to the floor, scrabbled my way under the table and cowered, shaking harder than the house could ever do.
Grandy appeared beside me. His arm was warm across my quivering back. ‘Lyla – honey girl, it’s okay. It’s not an earthquake. It’s the washing machine.’
I shook my head. ‘Stay down. Stay under cover. Please, Grandy – don’t die. Don’t let Nana die.’
But all he did was go on about washing machines. The shaking stopped. Nana Lilith’s voice came from somewhere above me. ‘I’ve turned it off, Lyla. It’s okay. Come on out.’
Together they hauled me to my feet. I was so ashamed. ‘Sorry. I’ve never freaked out like that before. Not even for the big ones.’
They sat me down on the sofa. ‘Listen, darling,’ Grandy said, ‘this place is on stilts. It probably shakes in a high wind too.’ He got up. ‘I’ll make you a drink. Lots of sugar in it for shock.’
I hid my head in my hands. ‘I feel so stupid. I’ve never been like this at home.’
Nana put her arm around me. ‘Darling girl – think for a moment. At home you’re always expecting the next quake. It doesn’t surprise you. But here you weren’t expecting the house to start shaking.’
It sounded logical, except that she didn’t know how unpredictable the world could be. She didn’t know how things could change in seconds and then never settle down.
I was so tired. I stood up and walked to the window. I should have brought a tent. I could sleep on the lawn and it wouldn’t matter if the ground went nuts.
There was a kookaburra on the power line and wallabies hopping around under the trees. I wanted to feel excited about seeing them, but I just felt tired.
The grandparents put me to bed and I slept until the heat of the afternoon woke me. I was hungry. That had to be good. I wouldn’t be hungry if I was dying.
Grandy gave me a hug when I tottered from the bedroom. ‘Food for you on the table, Lyla. You want water, tea or fruit juice?’
‘Juice, thanks. Hey, what’s with the packed bags?’ Their cases waited by the door along with a box of groceries. ‘And where’s Nana?’
Grandy pulled out a chair for me. ‘Eat. We’re going back to Brisbane. We’re going to stay in the house of some friends – single-storey. They’re going away, so it’ll just be us. And their dog.’
I started piling stuff into a bread roll. ‘But why? I mean, here’s great.’ But I knew. You couldn’t go around having full-blown meltdowns and expect your grandparents to ignore it.
‘Your nana is organising counselling for you. Can’t do it from here. No internet.’
I dropped my head into my hands. ‘I don’t want to go to counselling. Bloody counselling made Mum and Dad send me over here.’
He came and sat across the table from me. ‘Well, honey, I look at it this way. When I was working, if I got a piece of equipment that had a massive blowout, then a few days later it had another one – I figured I’d better get the whole thing overhauled.’
‘I’m not a machine.’
May as well not have said anything, because he kept on with the gosh-awful analogy. ‘Of course, I always had a choice – fix it or keep on using it till it completely wrecked itself.’
; I pushed my plate of untouched lunch away. ‘Grandy, I don’t want to go to counselling. You have to go back into all that stuff. And I don’t want to. It’s too scary.’
I’d never noticed what a kind face my grandfather had. He was an expert at looking kind, sympathetic and determined all at the same time. ‘It’s not so hot being in your head right now, though, is it? And how are you going to live the rest of your life if you can’t go up in a lift or cope with the heap of other things that might trigger the panic?’ He slid the plate back to me. ‘Eat up. Nana will have things organised. She’s got contacts in the counselling world.’
I ate, hoping she wouldn’t be able to get me an appointment before I was due to go home. Waiting lists and all that.
We were just coming into Brisbane when Nana Lilith’s phone went. It might be one of their friends. It might be…But no, what I was hearing wasn’t one side of a friend-type conversation.
‘Yes, this is Lilith Sherwin. Oh, that’s wonderful. Tonight at six? Thank you so much. It’s very kind of you.’
There was no escape. The counsellor was going to stay late as a special favour to Nana.
Great.
We went to the friends’ place. They practically fell on us, they were so grateful – their dog-sitter had had a last-minute crisis and cancelled. While they raved to the grandparents I made friends with the dog.
‘What’s her name?’ I asked.
The man dropped to his haunches to rub the dog’s ears. ‘This is our Lolly. You’re gorgeous, aren’t you, girl?’
Lolly was a fine-boned Doberman, shiny black. She stared in disbelief when the man jumped up, said, ‘Bye, Lolly. See you in a week,’ and strode out the door with the suitcases.
I put my arms around her. ‘It’s okay, Lolly. We’ll look after you.’ I rubbed her ears and I reckon if she’d been a cat she’d have purred.
I played with that dog for the rest of the afternoon. We went for a walk around the neighbourhood and I didn’t once worry about snakes or shakes. I was cured. All I needed was a dog.
The grandparents had other ideas. I had to leave Lolly behind when Nana drove me to the appointment. I didn’t moan, I knew how to be polite.
I can do this. I’ve lived through thousands of earthquakes. I can survive one lousy counselling session.
Dr James Moran was ancient. He looked like a wild man from the bush. He greeted me with a firm handshake and a casual grin. ‘So, young Lyla – I’m told you’re not a fan of counselling.’
Great intro, Dr James. I gave him a weak smile. ‘I’m grateful you could fit me in. It’s very kind of you.’
‘Ooh,’ he said. ‘Liar liar pants on fire! You’re hating every moment.’
What sort of doctor was he? And who was dumb enough to give him those fancy-looking certificates on the wall?
He laughed and waved me to a chair. ‘Have a seat. That’s the girl. Now, how about you say what you’re really feeling about being here?’
I shook my head. ‘You don’t want to know. The grandparents would be mortified.’
He settled back in his chair and stuck his feet on the coffee table between us. ‘I do want to know, and they’re not here. So let fly.’
Really? Well, he asked for it. ‘I don’t want to go back and re-live all that stuff by talking about it. I’m okay if I just keep going. If I don’t think about it I can cope.’
I was surprised when he nodded. ‘Yes, your gran told me you’ve been brilliant. A stalwart of the street, and particularly a life-saver for your immediate neighbour and her children.’
Now he was just sitting there looking at me. ‘What?’
‘Let’s not talk about the quakes. We’ll talk about right now. Talk about what it’s like being in Lyla’s body at this moment.’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t want to be here.’
That earned me a good girl, but then he said, ‘Tell me what that feels like.’
‘Bad. It feels bad.’
‘What sort of bad?’
I so didn’t want to. ‘It’s hard to breathe. I can’t sit up straight.’ I was trying not to start howling all over his stupid office.
‘What else?’ asked my tormentor.
The tears started. Oh please, not another slushy session. He pushed over a box of tissues and just sat there till I calmed down enough for him to fire more questions at me.
‘Tell me what that was all about.’
‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’ I was so tired. I wanted to be left alone. I wanted to sleep with Lolly the Doberman curled up on the bed beside me.
It seemed I’d said that out loud. He said, ‘What would that feel like? To be in bed with the dog beside you?’
I sighed. ‘Safe. It would feel safe, like nothing bad could happen.’
‘Your world hasn’t felt like that for a long time now?’
‘No.’ Such a dumb question.
‘Tell me about that.’
‘Do I have to?’ Apparently I did have to. ‘I’ve been fine. I know what to do when a quake hits. I’m the one who keeps calm. Mum and Dad made me go to counselling and that’s what started all this horrible stuff.’
I hoped he’d defend counselling and leave me alone. No such luck. ‘How have you been feeling these last months?’
I shrugged. ‘It’s hard. You’ve no idea what it’s like living in a broken city – always waiting for the next aftershock.’
‘No, I haven’t. You’re quite right. So tell me what that’s like.’
Okay, I walked right into that. ‘It’s crap. Everybody’s jumpy. We all laugh and crack jokes, but underneath it all we’re like the ground – shaky.’
‘What about you? Are you jumpy even though you laugh and crack jokes? Do you feel shaky and unstable? Do you feel that nothing in your life is safe or dependable any longer?’
I could only nod. ‘There’s no safe place. Not anymore.’ I lifted my head to look him straight in the eye. ‘And there never will be ever again.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘The world isn’t a safe place. How about we talk about ways you can live with that?’
‘If you want.’ Whatever. Just let me out of here.
He didn’t say anything, and when I looked up he was sitting there in his stupid chair with his stupid feet up on the stupid coffee table staring at me.
‘What?’
‘Lyla, this session isn’t about what I want. I’m not the one who has to go back home to a place where I’m always braced for the next quake, where I never feel safe, where others are depending on me to be strong.’
‘All right! Tell me how to live with it.’ He wouldn’t be able to, I knew that right down to my bones.
‘I can’t cure you…’
Ha! I knew counselling was useless, but at least he was honest. I went to get up, but plopped down again when he said, ‘What I can do is help you understand why you feel crap and give you a few things to help you live more peacefully in your unstable world.’
‘Does that mean I don’t have to talk about what it was like? I don’t have to remember it all over again?’
‘No. Later you might find it helpful to do that, but not right now.’
I breathed out, relaxing for the first time in months. ‘Okay. That sounds good. I’d like that.’
That earned me a grin and another good girl. He talked about how the quakes were hard to deal with because they were ongoing. ‘It’s like having a bad burn that keeps on getting scorched. It’s always there and you’re always braced for the next shock. That means that anything can set off the amygdala part of your brain, that’s the bit that’s responsible for memory, emotions and survival instincts. If something triggers it, it goes into the fight-or-flight response. Heart racing, breathing difficult, sick feeling.’
‘You mean it’s natural to get…like that when a plane goes over? Or there’s a truck out on the road?’ I was so ashamed of panicking over nothing.
‘Indeed it is, so you need to know how to take care of yourself. We’ll look at
how to do that next time.’ He sat up and planted his feet on the floor. ‘What’s happening with you is what’s sometimes called an amygdala hijack. I’ll send Lilith a link. She says you’re not short on brains, so jump online and read up on it. You’ll find it’ll help to know what you’re experiencing is pretty common and that it’s treatable.’
I got back to find an email from Mum. After the how are you darling bit there were newsy bits. The Jaffries’ house had been demolished. The Chans’ place would be next, then Prof’s and lastly the Nagels’. Candace Nagel rang again to tell us to retrieve her list of stuff. Hope she doesn’t turn up to do it herself. Wouldn’t be a good look to whip the handcuffs on her. Tempting, though!
So. My street would be different when I got home from how it was when I left. The old amygdala went into orbit. I sat on the couch with Lolly, holding her and stroking her till my heart rate settled.
If I was losing it, I wasn’t going to read about it. No cure, no point.
Nana Lilith snuggled in beside me and Lolly on the couch, a print-out in her hands. I turned my head away, shutting my eyes. Nana was sneaky, though, and read it to me like I was a little kid again. It was nice. Relaxing and nice. Lolly liked being read to too.
According to the article my amygdala didn’t like feeling threatened, so when it did it went nuts. ‘Did you take that bit in, darling?’ Nana asked.
‘Yeah. No good trying to argue with your amygdala. It doesn’t listen.’ I gave a bit of a laugh. It sounded just like Mrs Nagel! She wasn’t calm and rational either, and she totally didn’t listen to reason.
There was more – all about finding a safe place. I stood up. ‘Thanks, Nana. Okay to take Lolly for a walk?’
I had to escape. Obviously that so-called expert hadn’t had to live in a place where nothing was safe. But Dr James Moran was okay. I almost felt safe in his office.
Lolly and I walked around the neighbourhood. People stop and chat when you go walking with a dog. It was nice, even when they mocked my Kiwi accent.
When I got back, Grandy and Nana Lilith gave me searching looks – it felt like they were scanning my brain to see what my amygdala was up to. I didn’t mind; well, not too much. I figured they were entitled to be a bit on the hyper-alert side. Ha! Another quake term to throw around.
