Deeper than the Sea

by Nelika McDonald

  Beth counted each of the fingers and the thumb on her right hand, the way Theo did. ‘Okay then, well, why not?’

  ‘I can’t give out any information about that at the moment,’ the woman said. ‘How old are you anyway?’

  Beth pulled her school ID out of her wallet and slapped it down on the desk. This was why she’d gotten her nose pierced. That had been Theo’s idea. Beth had always looked much younger than she was, and being short didn’t help. The woman looked at Beth’s ID, then got a piece of paper and copied something down from it. She slid it back to her. ‘Why don’t you take a seat?’

  Beth stayed where she was for a few more beats, then took her ID card back.

  At either side of the foyer were benches and a coffee table that was bolted to the floor. A fishing magazine and a stack of parish newsletters lay on it, and a water cooler hummed and gurgled next to that. Beth sat down next to the cooler. She looked over the woman’s shoulder and down the hallway. She could see nobody, nothing. She had no idea what was happening. The woman started talking on the phone, and Beth could tell she was talking about her so she got out her headphones and slipped them on, but didn’t turn on her music. It was a trick she and her friend Erin used on the bus when they wanted to tell if guys were talking about them. Beth bobbed her head around a bit as though she could hear a beat.

  At the desk the policewoman stopped muttering and spoke normally.

  ‘Well, we might need a social worker,’ she said. ‘Tonight.’

  Beth made sure her face stayed blank. The woman said some other stuff about who to call after hours, but she didn’t say anything about Theo. She started talking about her niece, who, apparently, was also sixteen. She and Beth probably knew each other, the policewoman was saying. The way she said it was the way you would talk about an amazing coincidence. It wasn’t that surprising, Beth thought. She listened carefully, but there wasn’t anything more. After she had hung up, the policewoman went into a little kitchenette at the back of the reception and came back with a cup of coffee for herself.

  ‘Could I have one of those?’ Beth called. ‘Please?’

  The policewoman shook her head. ‘You’re too young to drink coffee.’

  Beth gritted her teeth. It smelt like instant to her, but she still would have paid a full hour of her wages for that coffee. She yawned and rubbed her eyes. It had been a long night. If she stretched out along this bench, she would probably go to sleep in minutes. It was a special talent she had, falling asleep quickly and deeply. Theo said Beth had been able to sleep in the child seat on the back of Theo’s bicycle when she was a baby, and had once napped right on Theo’s desk at the library, with people coming and going all around her. But there was no way she was going to sleep now, not until she found out why Theo was here, until someone told her what was going on.

  Another yawn came and she squashed it down. She turned the music on, loud, and flicked through some tracks. It was Caleb’s music: Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, David Bowie. Erin would have rolled her eyes at it, but Beth was starting to really like it. Erin had been her best friend all throughout high school, and they’d had the same group of friends for just about all that time too. But in the last few months Beth had felt something changing between herself and her old friends. A slow divide had opened up between them, like tectonic plates shifting, leaving Beth on one side and her old friends on the other.

  Erin had been calling her for days, but Beth hadn’t picked up. She didn’t feel like talking to Erin. She had already been talking to Erin for years. Maybe they’d had all the conversations they were ever going to have and if they stayed friends they would just keep repeating themselves over and over again. Those old friends, they were dead weight, and Beth was evolving. How could you become who you were meant to be if everyone around you had already made up their minds about who you were?

  The girl who had those friends, those sweet, dull and constant friends, that was the Beth from before, with her lavender-coloured bedroom and skinned knees and knotty hair. The same girl had believed that all the time was contained inside the clock, like a snake curled in a nest. She believed that when the sky went dark, someone in the sky was pulling a curtain across the sun, that houses with novelty letterboxes out the front contained only good people inside, and that the children of the world could be neatly divided into Coasties and Townies.

  Beth of the sage green room could be someone else entirely.

  That Beth was the girl Caleb Sutton waited outside the restaurant for. That Beth was the girl she was when she was with him. She would actually very much like it if Caleb was here. He could talk to the policewoman, get her onside. Beth saw his father in him when he turned on the charm. He hated his father in a way that frightened Beth. It was a typhoon sort of hate, a wild, whirling dervish, spinning-top sort of hate.

  Caleb would make this feel less serious, less sinister, he’d just shrug and make a joke or tell her a story. He would make it seem okay, being here at the police station waiting for her mother at eleven o’clock at night, not knowing why she was here, why she couldn’t see her. Caleb would buy all the junk food from the vending machine, because he always had money.

  Beth tried to think of reasons Theo might be here. They could have overdue bills. Maybe she’d let them pile up, she hated paying bills, she might have just forgotten. Or taxes. That one was definitely possible. Theo hated paying taxes too. She said they were just a means of surveillance, the government’s way of keeping tabs on people. Erin and her other friends acted like Theo was some sort of radical anarchist, but Beth didn’t think that was what it was about. Theo just liked her privacy. She didn’t like to intrude on other people’s lives, and she didn’t like hers intruded on. Maybe that’s what had happened, someone had tried to break in? Beth tried to picture what Theo would have done if that had happened. She might have punched some burglar’s lights out. That seemed plausible. Beth let herself relax a little. Self-defence, Theo was just protecting herself and her home. Nobody would keep her in jail for that. They were probably just getting it all in writing. Probably she was laughing right now, down that hallway, laughing at how ridiculous this all was, laughing at what a good story it would make, ammunition for her arsenal of everything bad she already said about this lot, police, government, paper-pushers.

  Beth slid back in the seat, pulled her feet up in front of her and wrapped her arms around her knees. She yanked the hood of her jumper down over her forehead and tugged her scarf up over her chin. It looked like she was going to be here for a while, and there was nothing Beth could do about it. Nothing except wait.

  chapter seven

  After the interview, Theo was left alone in the room. She’d been given no indication of what was to come; with what, or when, she would be charged. There was no clock and she didn’t wear a watch. She wasn’t handcuffed, but the door seemed to be locked. She was working very hard to not panic. The hard metal chair was starting to make her pelvis ache, so Theo stood up and walked around the room for a while. When she grew tired of that, she sat on the floor. She kept her eyes on the door, ready.

  The floor was a speckled, pebble-dash lino that managed to contain many colours but appear as a muddy, murky beige overall. To try to keep herself calm, Theo counted the shades of brown and black within the beige and tried to name them. There were four chairs around a table bolted to the floor. Theo supposed that was so people couldn’t throw it. She imagined herself lifting the table over her head. She imagined throwing it at Detective Verten, seeing his sceptical expression turn to fear. Verten thought he had it all figured out, had Theo all figured out. He’d heard this story before, his expression had said. He’d met Theo before, women just like her.

  No, Theo wanted to say. You’ve got it all wrong; you’ve got me all wrong.

  But it was too late.

  Beth, Beth, Beth, her head and heart chanted, on a loop, Beth, Beth, Beth. Theo thought of homing pigeons, of magnets drawn together, that sweet relief of holding your child in your arms, the
ir cheek against your shoulder, nose burrowed into your neck. Why else did humans have that curve from shoulder to neck if not for a child’s head? Theo thought of Beth as a baby, of holding her while she slept. Her arms thrown back and tiny mouth slack, the impossible softness behind her ears, the way her fingers curled in if Theo drew circles on her little palms the size of coins. She thought of bathing Beth, seeing her limbs bobbing in the sink, her whole body relaxing as Theo swayed her back and forth, her hands under her head. She used to trace Beth’s delicate twig ribcage with her fingers. ‘That is where your gills would have been,’ she’d told her. ‘We all come from water.’

  Theo watched shadows move under the door, footsteps coming closer and then retreating. A television was mounted on the wall, but there were no controls that she could see. This was all part of it, she reminded herself. They will get to you in any way they can.

  ‘Boredom is an insult to yourself.’ That’s what her mother used to tell her. ‘If you exercise your mind, it grows stronger and wilder, and so full that it alone can always amuse you. If you’re bored, that means your mind is insufficiently trained.’ All Theo took from this at six years old was that there was something she wasn’t doing as she ought to, some new way that she had proven herself lacking. Again.

  Theo tried the door handle again, just in case. Still locked. If it wasn’t for that, she could just up and leave, she told herself. She hadn’t officially been arrested. And yet – she was locked up.

  Theo had never been in a jail cell. Not even close. Although there had been times when she was working with Oliver and the other staff at the restaurant, all those years ago, that she had thought they’d better watch their backs. Everyone had been high all the time, that was just how they did the hours. Nobody ever talked about it or seemed to think about it an awful lot, but Theo never took anything. She didn’t like the thought of there being nobody at the helm who wasn’t under the influence of something; what if something went wrong? Oliver thought she was funny, he said the drugs didn’t make him any less able to handle things, quite the opposite, in fact. He was Oliver amplified, oiled springs and gears clicking along faster, smoother. Theo worried that any police officer walking into the restaurant kitchen would arrest the lot of them, but Oliver told her not to, that was why Alice gave the right people a good table and bottle of plonk on the house when they came in.

  ‘If they’re happy out the front, they won’t come around the back,’ he said.

  She took his word for that. And everything else.

  Theo sat down, pressing her spine into the backrest. She placed her feet next to each other, the toes of her shoes lined up. She spread her fingers out over her legs, each equidistant to the next. She took a deep breath, then released it. Then she burst into tears, a horrible, gasping, violent sort of crying, the sort that wouldn’t stop no matter how hard you tried, that actually got worse when you tried to stop. Theo jammed the heels of her hands into her eyes. When that didn’t work, she stuffed a fist into her mouth, biting down with her teeth, trying to shift the locus of the pain, trying to quiet herself.

  Beth, Beth, Beth.

  She just needed to see her. She needed to explain.

  The worst part was, she had known this day would come. In some way she had been waiting for this for sixteen years. Although the fear had faded over time, at every birthday, every Mother’s Day, every Christmas, Theo still wondered: will this be our last day together? So how then could she be so ill-prepared to face the consequences of her own actions? Why was she feeling so floored by what was happening now?

  The door opened and Detective Verten came in with Joe, the uniformed officer, and a woman with a cloud of curly blonde hair that reminded Theo of Mary. That poodle-print blouse wasn’t something Mary would have worn, though, and the way this woman’s mouth was set, her lips pressed into a line, wasn’t like Mary either. Theo swiped at her face with her hands. They had to come in when she had been crying, didn’t they?

  ‘Theo, this is Angela Demetri,’ Verten said. He gestured to the woman, who nodded at Theo. She didn’t offer her hand to shake. ‘She’s from the Department of Family Services. I’ve brought her here to talk with you about Beth. She will be speaking with Beth later, as well.’

  ‘Where is Beth?’ Theo asked.

  ‘Here,’ Detective Verten said.

  Theo stood up involuntarily.

  ‘Sit,’ Verten said sharply, and pointed at the chair.

  ‘If Beth’s here then I want to see her.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible,’ Angela Demetri spoke up.

  ‘You’re afraid?’ Theo slid her eyes over the other woman. A social worker, she gathered. She hadn’t been introduced as a police officer.

  Angela’s eyes met Theo’s, then flicked away. Her hand went to her hair, then she pulled it back down. Maybe she’s new in the job, Theo thought. I’m making her nervous.

  ‘Mrs Demetri is correct,’ Verten said.

  It’s probably Ms, Theo thought. She saw the social worker close her eyes, briefly. Her lips stayed pressed together. I know, thought Theo. The thousand tiny ways they undermine you. In any other circumstance she would have had some sympathy for this woman. But not today.

  Above them the lights changed the frequency of their hum, pitching up to a higher, more erratic buzz. Theo braced herself for what was coming. It was like standing in the surf, facing down a wave so tall that you knew it would knock you to the ocean floor, no two ways about it. All you could do was steel yourself; keep your eyes fixed on it and wait for the inevitable.

  ‘Beth is being removed from your custody, Ms Abrams,’ Verten said. ‘Pending further investigation and the potential charges laid against you. We’ve put a protection order in place, do you know what that means?’

  Theo’s chest tightened as if her throat was closing over, and her hands flew up from her sides, grabbing at air.

  ‘You must not make any contact with Beth. You must not try and communicate with her in any way, and you must not come within two hundred metres of her at any time while this order is in place. It’s effective immediately. Is that clear?’

  When one of those really big waves came, it was anything but clear down there in the midst of it. It was a swirling cyclone of sand and water and the whip of seaweed as you collided with the ocean floor. It was an assault on every sense you had, the rush in your ears and the salt in your eyes, water up your nose and filling your mouth and the bruise and bump and graze of your body, swung back and forth in the arms of the ocean.

  If you managed to get up in time, you might just catch your breath before the next big wave came and knocked you right over again.

  Or you might not.

  chapter eight

  When Beth woke up she felt disoriented, like she’d been blindfolded and spun in a circle. She knew she wasn’t in her own bed but she didn’t immediately recognise where she was instead. She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep for, but she definitely still felt tired. Everything hurt from contorting to lie across the seats and her mouth was dry and sour. She rubbed her eyes.

  The details from earlier in the night came trickling back: being at the restaurant, in the clean, quiet car with Sergio, the police station, the condescending woman at the desk. Beth leant forward to see if the policewoman was still there, but she couldn’t see anyone. Her head throbbed when she moved, and Beth pressed it with her fingertips. She always got headaches when she was anxious.

  She stood up and looked around. Outside, the sky was still dark but beginning to lighten, with yellow clots where the streetlamps were studded along the road. Beth could hear someone moving about nearby. She stood on the doormat, in front of the automatic doors and did some yoga stretches that Theo had taught her. Theo was always trying to get Beth to do yoga but she got bored too quickly to get much out of it.

  She was always giving Beth what felt like an endless stream of tricks and tips, too. Apple cider vinegar was the key to digestive health. Credit cards were the work of th
e devil, if Beth couldn’t pay for something with cash, then she couldn’t afford it. Before she went away Beth should put clean sheets on her bed, her future self would appreciate coming home to it. Crush garlic with the flat of the blade to remove the skin.

  Up on the wall, a security camera lens followed Beth’s movements. She moved close enough to the door to set the motion sensor off, and then stepped back again. And forward again.

  Whoosh, went the doors, sliding open, and Whoosh, again, sliding closed. Beth waved at the camera.

  ‘Okay, okay, that’ll do,’ a different police officer called out from the desk, a man, probably in his fifties.

  ‘Hello, sir,’ Beth said, using her most polite and respectful tone. She went over.

  ‘Hello, young lady. Sue told me about you.’ His voice was gruff, but his face was kind.

  Sue. Sue who wouldn’t give her a cup of coffee earlier. Beth tried to keep her expression neutral. ‘I would really like someone to tell me what’s going on. Can you do that? Where is my mother?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t discuss that with you.’

  ‘But I’m her daughter.’

  He shrugged.

  Beth tried again. ‘It’s just the two of us. There’s nobody else to discuss it with.’

  ‘Sorry.’ He shook his head.

  ‘That’s really stupid. I’ve been here for hours. What am I supposed to do, just wait?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Or maybe not. She’d done enough of that already. Beth returned to her seat, picked up her bag and walked out through the automatic doors, even though she was busting to pee and there was a public restroom right next to the waiting area. She felt like she might cry from frustration and worry and she didn’t want to do it in front of a stupid police officer in a stupid police station. The doors shut behind her and the cold early morning air slapped her in the face.

  ‘Wait.’