Deeper than the Sea

by Nelika McDonald

  She thought of the promenade table as the exhibition table, where people sat to be seen. It was even raised a little up from the ground where passers-by walked, on a platform like a stage. Canvas sails stretched above it, and a fan with wooden blades did what work the sea breeze could not in keeping the guests comfortable. Beachcombers only had one long banquet table out there, which Beth thought was stupid. At night, with the fairy lights in the trees and the origami of bougainvillea on the lattice and the parade of people out for strolls, it would have been perfect for couples. First dates or second ones, anniversary dinners. Dates were usually pretty awkward from what Beth had observed, she had never actually been on an official date herself, and the pretty setting and purr of the nearby sea might help distract from any strangeness. At the very least there would be things to look at besides the table and each other, both blank and expectant.

  In the distance, the ambulance came into view again, headlights curving away on the edge road around the cliffs. No sirens was a bad sign. Beth exhaled, a small private sigh, as she stacked plates on her wrists.

  Every summer, tourists got stuck in the waves on the main beach, surprised by the force of the rip dragging them out beyond the break. There were extra lifeguards, warning signs printed in different languages, red buoys bobbing in the demarcated swimming zone, and yet every year was the same. Beth used to be in Nippers, she had felt it for herself. Theo said she always thought of their parents, at home in whatever country the poor swimmers had hailed from, getting that phone call, so contrary to what they expected of their holidaying child. They were prepared to be asked for more money, or to be complained to about bed bugs and communal showers and tedious overnight bus trips, but they never expected to be told that instead of lying oiled and bronzed upon golden sand, the body that they had brought into life was now lifeless, purple and white mottled flesh still and stagnant on a beach that wasn’t even golden, in a place they had never heard of.

  Cardmoor. Not even Bondi.

  At a nearby table there was a raucous cheer and someone stood up. The other people at his table beckoned him down, laughing, tugging at the hem of his shirt. Someone dropped a glass on the tiles. It was Sophie’s section and she rolled her eyes at Beth as she went past on her way to fetch a dustpan.

  ‘Dickheads.’

  Beth nodded. It could go either way though, she thought. Drunk people either tipped a lot or nothing at all. Beth didn’t drink much. She had seen too many drunk people to enjoy it. It was like a zoo here, some nights.

  Beth carried one lot of dishes into the kitchen and went back out for another. Maybe Caleb would turn up to walk her home. He’d been doing that a bit lately. Beth pretended she didn’t much care either way, but her stomach rose and fell like she was in a plummeting lift if she got outside and he wasn’t there.

  She couldn’t quite believe that someone like Caleb would be interested in someone like her. He’d been a year ahead of her at school so Beth hadn’t really known him. But she knew of him. They had actually properly met here, at the restaurant, the first time. He was with his parents. He had watched her for a while and then smiled at her when she brought his drink. He kept smiling at her as she poured it. His parents muttered to each other, heedless. He had blue eyes, with flecks of tawny brown around the pupils.

  ‘Thank you, Beth,’ he said when she had finished pouring. He said it again each time she brought something to their table.

  She had introduced herself at the beginning of the evening, but nobody usually remembered her name. Not everybody said thank you. Nobody apart from Caleb had done both of those things in the whole time Beth had been a waitress.

  At first when he said it, Beth blushed, but towards the end of the night she smiled back, or gave a small nod. When she finished work that night, Caleb was waiting outside.

  That had been a month or so ago, and Caleb had walked her home from work maybe a dozen times since then. But Beth had never seen him at any other time of day. She didn’t know how to say that she wanted to. And did she want to? She wasn’t sure. There was something about Caleb that felt a little risky, a little uncertain. Or maybe everyone else in Cardmoor was just pretty tame and predictable. The problem was the baseline, not the test subject. Sometimes she could smell weed on him, but that wasn’t anything. Everyone smoked weed around here. It was something else, something about the way he seemed much older than he was, and how he seemed like he wasn’t really from Cardmoor, or not like everyone else here anyway. He knew things, about people and places. He talked about big things, or the whole world, not just their town. He liked music and books she’d never even heard of. He was not like anyone else Beth had ever met. She wanted to know more about him. She wanted him to be outside when she finished work tonight, with that slow smile just for her.

  Beth had delivered the last desserts and coffees to the diners and was waiting for them to eat, pay and leave, hopefully within the next half-hour or so. When she dropped off a load of plates, the chef signalled to her and inclined his head at Sergio.

  ‘Boss wants to see you.’

  Sergio stood near the front of the restaurant, the phone in his hand. His normally flushed cheeks were the colour of sour milk. He didn’t speak, but looked at her, and then didn’t speak still, while Beth stood and looked back, waiting. The moment for him to speak passed, and then the next passed too, and then Anne came over and laid a hand on his shoulder and it seemed to jolt him out of whatever reverie he had fallen into and he shook her off like she was an annoying insect.

  He came closer to Beth and bent at the waist a bit to speak to her, as though she was a little girl.

  ‘Something’s happened,’ he said, slow and deliberate. He laid his hand on her shoulder, just as Anne had done to him. Tag, you’re it, thought Beth.

  ‘It’s Theo,’ Sergio said, and Beth felt all the breath leave her body at once, whoosh! She felt herself sway, back and forth, and her hands went to her face of their own accord, covering her mouth.

  ‘It’s okay, she’s not hurt, Beth,’ Sergio said. ‘But she’s at the police station. You better get down there.’

  chapter five

  The interview room at the police station was roughly the same size as an average bathroom. Theo had never been further than the front desk before, and then only to pay a parking fine or report vandalism at the library. It was strange being somewhere unfamiliar in Cardmoor. What she’d liked when they moved here was the size of it; not so small that you knew everybody, but small enough that the town as a whole was a known quantity. There were very few surprises here. Before today. She had been waiting for two hours now. A police officer in uniform opened the door.

  ‘Theo Abrams?’

  Theo raised her eyebrows. ‘Yes?’ She made sure she kept her voice level.

  ‘This way, please.’

  The officer held the door open for her, a slight smirk on his face. He led the way down the hallway through a series of doors that he unlocked with keys from a ring he carried. He liked all those keys, Theo could tell. The way he handled them. It struck her often that people went into jobs for altogether the wrong reasons. She wondered how many hours of the day this officer spent doing paperwork. Filing reports of petty thefts, skirmishes at the RSL, speeding tickets. Was this the job he’d dreamt of as a little boy?

  Theo walked just a little bit too slowly. The waiting, the changing of rooms. This silent escort. They were all intimidation tactics, she told herself. She knew what they were doing, and she would not allow herself to be rattled by it. They reached another room and the officer held the door open again. He stepped forward as Theo entered the room, so his wrist brushed her breast. It didn’t feel like an accident to Theo. She wondered if he guessed what she had been thinking about him. He was so young, he looked like he didn’t even need to shave, beautiful skin, mottled pink like he was blushing. She wondered if he’d been teased for that.

  Two men in suits were already in the room. Theo glanced at them, and then at the camera already set up
and recording, a little green light beaming next to the lens. A dark glass panel lined one wall. Theo peered at it but couldn’t see anything.

  ‘Please, take a seat, Mrs Abrams.’

  ‘Ms,’ Theo replied. She sat, and looked at the men. They didn’t look at her, but at each other and at the papers on the table in front of them.

  ‘Thanks, Joe,’ one of the men said to Theo’s escort.

  ‘Yes, thanks, Joe,’ Theo repeated. She feigned interest in the camera. She could sense the men looking at her, then at each other. They didn’t like her, already. She wasn’t beautiful, and that disappointed them. With her high forehead and wide, nondescript brown eyes, her un-generous mouth and shaved head on a long neck, Theo knew she wasn’t the sort of woman who made men weaken. At least she was interesting though. That was the one card she held. As long as they wanted information she had, she was interesting to them.

  The officer left and the door shut with a heavy click.

  ‘Ms Abrams, I believe you know why you’re here,’ one of the men said. Theo looked at each of them in turn. She tried to look stern, like they were naughty children at the library. These men weren’t library members. She hadn’t seen them before.

  ‘Did she die?’ Theo asked.

  The two men frowned at her. ‘Who?’

  ‘The woman who jumped off the cliff.’

  They looked at each other again, and then one of them spoke.

  ‘Yes.’

  Theo sighed, and nodded. She knew she wasn’t supposed to say that was good, but maybe it was. That was what the woman had wanted. She could imagine how that woman would be feeling now if she had survived. Resentful of her soft sheets and pallid tea and white blankets with a blue stripe and her own pulse relentlessly beating on and on.

  ‘Ms Abrams –’

  ‘I didn’t push her. She jumped, I saw her. She was trying to kill herself.’ Theo leant forward in her chair.

  ‘Who said that you pushed her? Why do you say that?’

  ‘Maybe that’s what you think,’ Theo said. She raised her eyebrows. She wished she was pretty. She used to wish it often, but these days she only wished for it when it would have helped expedite some mundane process, or get her out of something, or into something, that she wanted. Not pretty for the sake of it, she didn’t care about that any more. She wasn’t certain when that had happened.

  ‘No, Ms Abrams, that is not why you’re here.’

  No, Theo thought. But it had been nice to pretend it was, just for a little while.

  One of the men wore a badge that said Detective Inspector Robert Verten. It was gold and shiny. She wondered if he polished it. Or if someone else did. His wife? Theo’s mind steadfastly refused to stay focused on what was happening. Was it some sort of defence mechanism? Or was she just bored? The other detective scraped back his chair and Theo’s stomach lurched. No, she wasn’t bored. Sweat pooled in the small of her back.

  Theo looked at the two men across the table looking back at her, in this room, in this police station, the pebble-dash lino on the floor and the square metal legs of the table, and felt like she might be sick. And then she was, on the top of the table, a little bit on the floor. There was a flutter of activity then, which Theo watched as though she was not involved but a casual observer, even as a female officer came in with a clutch of tissues and water in a small plastic cup for her. She had moved into a detachment phase, Theo registered dimly. The water was good, and she drank it down and asked for another.

  She had been thirsty for hours now but she’d forgotten to drink. She couldn’t forget to drink, nobody was going to remind her. Nobody was going to ask her again if she wanted any water. She needed to be able to look after herself. If she couldn’t do that then she couldn’t look after Beth. She had to snap out of it.

  Once the table had been cleared, the two detectives began again. One read to her from a statement and Theo listened as though it was a story, like those she read to the children in the library, inviting them to step out of their own worlds for a while and enter the one between the pages.

  Take my hand and come down this path . . .

  When he had finished reading aloud, the detective closed the folder, as if to say: and that is the end of the story.

  When it was a good story, the children at the library said, ‘Again, again!’ to Theo. Their appetite for hearing something over and over always surprised her. She had decided that it wasn’t the substance of the story they were requesting; after all, they knew what happened by then. It was just being read to. They wanted to keep being read to. So she did, always. That was her job.

  She looked at the detectives in turn. She could tell they wanted her to say something. About the story. About the characters in it. She didn’t speak.

  ‘What is your response to this allegation, Ms Abrams?’

  It was so absurd that Theo almost laughed. A response, to that? But it was all there, wasn’t it? It didn’t matter what she said. If what she said carried any weight at all she wouldn’t be here, listening to horrible stories about herself. She was on the back foot, because she was not the author. She did not narrate.

  Different storytellers did bring new things to the same text, that was true. They spoke differently and gave shadow and light to different parts of the whole. But the problem with her own version was that it wasn’t coherent. It wasn’t at the time and it wasn’t now. It didn’t have a beginning, a middle and an end: it wasn’t linear. They wanted her to find words for all that had happened, so long ago, and then arrange those words into sentences and deliver those sentences in some sort of logical order and make it make sense for them, make them understand. But Theo didn’t understand, so how could she make them understand?

  When Beth was just a newborn her head would have fit into one of Oliver’s soup ladles. Her cranium, fuzzed with dark hair, was so fragile that you could see her pulse in her fontanelle for months after she arrived, a reminder, a warning – her own heartbeat was that close to the surface, covered only by skin. Theo’s littlest finger spanned the length of her shin from her ankle to her knee.

  Theo was barely thirty then, thirty seemed so young now. Too young, far too young, to know how to handle any of what happened.

  The detectives looked at her. Theo tipped her head back and looked at the ceiling. The lights flickered and one of the detectives scraped his chair along the ground as he pushed it back and stood up. He was impatient, she knew that, knew he was standing up to show her he was busy, important, no time to waste waiting for her to answer. Theo watched him out of the corner of her eye. If he touched her she would punch him. She might not be able to stop punching him. She felt a loose, crazy sort of helplessness. It was like someone had asked her to explain why there were wars, or what love was, or how come there was a moon? And her answer needed to be right, or someone would press the red button.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and placed both her hands flat on the table, fingers spread wide apart, as if to show them that she was hiding nothing. ‘That’s what happened. But if you’re asking me if I’m guilty, I’m not.’

  chapter six

  Sergio drove Beth to the station and that made everything seem worse, more serious. The restaurant hadn’t closed yet and he never usually left before closing. The car was clean, spotless in fact, and it made Beth sad, that Sergio and Anne had no children, that the back seat wasn’t full of crumbs and sultanas and crayons and spare hats. They had never told Beth that they couldn’t have children, but she knew, somehow. When families came in, they smiled too much, too widely, so widely Beth thought their faces might split open.

  She often thought things like that. Theo said she was macabre but she was just interested in anatomy, in what would happen if people’s faces did split open. Beth would like to know the name of every muscle and fibre and band of tissue you could see if they did. They had dissected a toad in Biology and everyone gagged and carried on but Beth liked it, she liked seeing what was beneath the lumpy, wet-boot slime of its skin. That she could
know even more than that toad did about itself.

  When they pulled up outside the police station, Sergio asked Beth if she wanted him to come in with her. In the clean car, his face partly lit by the streetlights outside the station, he looked different: older, smaller, and Beth noticed how tired he looked, and sombre; he was never usually sombre. She didn’t like seeing him out of the restaurant. It was like seeing your teacher at the supermarket when you were in primary school. A polar bear at the beach – a disruption to the natural order of things.

  ‘No, no, you go back,’ she waved him away and he nodded. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing. She’ll be out in no time. I can always call Mary if I need to.’

  Sergio nodded again. He knew Mary. Her name was the magic word that persuaded him to put the car into gear and drive off.

  Beth stood in front of the police station. She wished she looked older, or at least the age she actually was. She took a deep breath and started walking, trying to ignore the tightness of her chest and her jittery heart skipping around in there. She and Theo had not been as close lately. Always a little overprotective, Theo’s attention had become suffocating. But Beth wasn’t feeling her usual annoyance with Theo now. What she was feeling was a pull, like gravity. She wanted her mother.

  In the police station Beth walked through the entrance foyer to where a policewoman at the front desk was alone, a radio crackling in the background. She wasn’t sitting but standing off to one side, using one hand to pull the other arm up towards the ceiling. In no particular hurry, she let them both fall to her sides when she saw Beth.

  ‘Did my back in,’ she said. ‘Needed a stretch. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Theo Abrams,’ she said, trying to sound adult. ‘She’s my mother and I need to see her.’

  The woman frowned.

  ‘Can I see her, please?’

  The policewoman smiled, as though Beth had said something funny. ‘Can you see her? No. But good manners, honey.’