Don't Leave Me Breathless

by A Kelly

  But they weren’t going to Oakhampton, Pierre had driven past the turn. What else was in the Hunter Valley apart from Aunty Jean’s house?

  She felt shakes on her lap. It wasn’t the bird, it was her hands.

  ‘Is Mum with another man?’ she asked.

  ‘No! How could you say that?’ said Pierre.

  Pierre drove straight for a few kilometres then made a turn.

  ‘You’re taking me to Bobby’s crime scene?’ She frowned at her dad but he didn’t say anything, didn’t even look at her. Bobby Swinburne had bashed an off-duty security guard in front of an abandoned petrol station not far from where they were now – next right turn, then past two roundabouts.

  But they weren’t heading there either. They turned left, drove for another ten minutes, and a vast complex with impeccable green gardens and three brick buildings loomed in front of them.

  ‘Pierre? What the hell is this place?’

  St Therese.

  ‘Your mum is ill,’ he said clearly trying hard to stop himself from crying.

  Her mum was only 49 – this nursing home couldn’t be for her.

  Summer, with the bird still in her arms, marched towards the office.

  Along the path leading to the office doors, she handed over the bird to a man who could be a nurse, a general support person, or even a gardener. ‘It has a broken wing. Please take care of it. Please…’

  He took it, then he looked around. He said something that she couldn’t understand; he seemed to speak very little English.

  ‘I’ll be back,’ Summer said and ran inside – straight to the reception. ‘Louise, um, Catherine Louise Rideau. I’m her daughter.’ She scribbled her name and signature on the visitor book. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Lovely to meet you, Ms Rideau,’ the receptionist said. ‘Is it the first time you…’ She looked behind her. ‘Oh, Mr Rideau.’

  ‘I’m sorry we came in a rush,’ Pierre said and stood beside Summer.

  ‘That’s okay. Freida will take you to Mrs Rideau.’ The reception pointed at the nurse waiting at the other end of the counter.

  Summer walked ahead of the nurse, as if she knew where she was going. She followed the noise – old people laughing, playing games, knitting, moving around, some were on walkers, some were in wheelchairs. She scanned them – they were really old. Her mum couldn’t be around here. She kept walking and arrived at an open area. At the other end she found her, the beautiful Catherine Louise, sitting under an umbrella, wrapped in a blanket, reading a book Summer recognised – Macbeth. Her mum wasn’t ill. She couldn’t be ill.

  Summer might’ve called her mum or her steps might’ve been loud. While she was still a few metres away, her mum lifted her head, gazing at her.

  ‘Summer!’

  ‘Mum…’

  By then the nurse and Pierre had just arrived at the edge of the garden. She ignored them and ran to her mum. They hugged.

  ‘Mum… you’re all right!’

  ‘Of course I’m all right, love. How was karate?’

  She’d stopped training years ago.

  What had changed? When they’d spoken on the phone, her questions had been repetitive at times, but normal. And she’d said safe flight, see you soon just three nights ago.

  No, her mum wasn’t ill.

  But her mother changed right in front of her eyes and Summer knew Pierre was behind her. Louise’s motherliness turned to belligerence. At once she threw her book and blanket away, got up, and pulled Summer away from Pierre. Her outstretched arm formed a barricade between her daughter and her husband.

  ‘Stay away from her, Joseph!’

  ‘Mrs Rideau…’ The nurse tried to calm her down. Other nurses soon joined them.

  But her mum kept shouting, ‘I won’t let you hurt her ever again!’

  Pierre stood like a statue, face white as a ghost, lips trembling.

  Summer slowly separated herself from the chaos and slipped away. She followed the noise of the old people to find her way out. She considered calling a taxi and leaving Pierre behind. But she had a lot to tell him, and he had a lot of explaining to do. So she waited.

  Pacing the front lawn, she found her jacket under a tree.

  ‘Jake!’

  She opened her bunched-up jacket but the bird was gone. So he’d been taken care of? She looked around. No… that white blob about ten metres from where she stood did not suggest the bird was okay. She went to check on him.

  ‘Noo! Jake!’

  She howled as if the bird had been her Jake. Why did everything have to happen at the same time? She was tired. So tired. She’d just been on a 24-hour flight, visited her brother’s grave, found out that her mum was ill, now the bird she’d tried to rescue was dead?

  She looked around. No sign of the man whom she’d given the kookaburra to. In fact, no one else was around except for the two people slogging along the main path of the lawn – Pierre, with a nurse helping him walk back to the car. Summer put her jacket over the bird and met them.

  Pierre was still pasty white. Looking at his trembling lips, she knew her conversation with him would have to wait.

  ‘You’re welcome to stay here tonight. We have guest rooms in the other building,’ the nurse said.

  Summer shook her head.

  ‘Drive carefully,’ the nurse said, giving Summer the keys.

  The silence on the drive back translated to ethereal noise in her head. How could he do this to her mum? How could her mum do this to herself? Her mum had never been sick in her life. If everybody else caught the stomach bug, her mum was fine. Everybody else got the flu, her mum was fine. How could she let her brain falter like that!

  Summer turned to Pierre. Damn liar!

  Two hours passed slowly, but the minutes snuck up on her. Before she knew it, the car was in front of Pierre’s house – the house she had only lived in for a year before they had moved to DC. The solid steel gate used to be painted white; it was now black, or dark blue, the colour of impenetrable night.

  She scrambled to find the remote. Slowly the gate slid open.

  As soon as the car engine stopped, Pierre robotically got out of the car, unlocked the front door and marched towards the couch in the second living room.

  ‘You liar!’ said Summer.

  He stared at the floor.

  ‘How long has she been like that?’

  ‘I’ve never seen her like that before,’ he responded finally.

  ‘How long has she been there?’

  ‘Almost a year.’

  Summer knocked her forehead against a shelf next to her mother’s antique desk.

  ‘All this time, when I spoke to her on the phone, were you coaching her or something?’

  Pierre closed his eyes.

  ‘And I guess that’s why a lot of times you said she was away,’ she said. ‘My God, Pierre! Of all the things you’ve done, this is the worst!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Summer. I don’t want to accept she’s ill, you know? She’s not here, because she’s away. Not because she’s ill.’

  ‘So you put her in a home, and hid it from your daughter.’

  ‘I couldn’t take care of her. She cried all the time, she left home and she couldn’t find her way back. She wouldn’t eat.’

  ‘You haven’t tried hard enough! You’re supposed to be the wise one. You think like Napoleon, right?’

  ‘Summer, please…’

  ‘What did that idol of yours say about taking care of your wife? Oh wait… Napoleon had two wives! And you want me to call you Dad?’

  She might’ve just wrecked Pierre completely this time. All the creases on his face merged; it looked as if his skin was about to rot.

  ‘I was never married to Charlotte.’ His voice shook. ‘I don’t know why or’––he held his chest and gulped––‘how your brother came to that conclusion.’

  Summer sighed. She didn’t want to hurt him that much. And looking into his eyes, she believed he’d told the truth. She placed her hand on his sh
oulder. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just… you didn’t warn me; not even a hint! But it’s not your fault Mum became this way. She couldn’t “catch” dementia. Demontia, more like.’ Summer bit her lip at the memory. ‘She thought I was sixteen, just back from karate, and that you were going to—’

  ‘Please don’t…’

  ‘Oh, Pierre…’

  ‘Call me Dad, just once, please.’

  ‘Was she ever happy with you?’

  ‘I’m not perfect, but I hope so, Summer.’

  ‘I should’ve come back to Sydney with you and Mum.’

  ‘You made the right decision to stay in DC.’

  Of course he thought so. ‘I feel I never knew Mum. She was close to Jake. I’m not complaining about it, but… it seemed that she didn’t want to be that close to me because I was already close to you. It was like she didn’t want you to lose out.’

  ‘That’s not true!’

  ‘I wanted to know her more.’ And find out what her mum had really meant by you can’t have two wives. ‘But she wouldn’t give me that chance. How could she do this to us? What should we do now?’ Summer wasn’t really looking for an answer.

  ‘We carry on,’ he said.

  ‘How can you carry on, Pierre? By pretending she’s forever away? Well, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to pretend she’s dead.’

  ‘Summer!’ he snapped. ‘She’s still your mother! She still remembers you.’

  ‘Did you see her eyes, Pierre? She saw me, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was somewhere … somewhere… in a place and time that hurt me. Why would I want to be with a mother who hurts me? She’s as good as dead!’

  Pierre slapped her.

  She slapped him back. ‘And you can go with her!’

  Molly’s and Milo’s beady eyes looked sanguinely at Summer. They were never angry – despite her putting them through a long flight without her and perhaps a level of anxiety in the hands of those quarantine people for one whole month.

  Pierre had left in the middle of the night and still hadn’t come home. Summer presumed he was burying himself in work and pretending nothing had happened. She wished he was there to see her two guinea pigs coming home with her. When her mum had given the pair to Summer, against all odds he’d said the ‘c’ word – cute. He’d never called Maya ‘cute’; he wasn’t really a dog person. Yet he fell in love with the guinea pigs.

  Despite his absence, Pierre had remembered that Summer had to pick up the two rodents from airport quarantine today; he’d left a set of keys to his other car, the Toyota Rav4. Perhaps, too, he’d actually considered that their cage would need the space in the four-wheel drive.

  She shouldn’t have been angry at Pierre last night – or at least not to the degree she had. She had been exhausted, she’d been jetlagged, she’d been nervous to see Pierre again. Now she wanted Pierre to be here to hear her say sorry. And perhaps ‘Dad’. But he had more important things to do.

  Summer watched Molly and Milo moving clumsily around their cage and sniffing the air.

  ‘You don’t like this place, huh? Neither do I. We’ll find a place of our own soon.’

  She continued unpacking her suitcase until she had enough clothes out for three days.

  A corner of a photo frame stuck out of the remaining pile. The Penguin holiday – she’d had it framed just before she’d left DC.

  Then there was Chevy under another pile of clothes – her own penguin plush from Pierre. After that holiday, her mum had told Pierre how Summer let Jake have Sam, so Pierre had felt he ought to reward her. But Pierre knew nothing about penguins. Chevy wasn’t a fairy penguin, he was an emperor penguin. Still, Summer had loved Chevy. Too much. He was now as flat as a pancake from being squeezed and hugged excessively, and his fur had roughened and clumped in places.

  She shouldn’t have pushed Pierre away. Forcing him to take her to see her mum had been a mistake. If she’d waited, maybe he would’ve told her about her mum gently. But she had insisted, and Pierre couldn’t say no. It wasn’t Pierre’s fault. It wasn’t her mum’s fault. But she’d needed to blame someone.

  She took a deep breath and said to Molly and Milo, ‘I’ll be back. Be good.’

  ‘You must be Ms Rideau. I’m Claire,’ Pierre’s secretary greeted her.

  ‘Did my father say I was coming?’

  ‘He did say you were back in Sydney and would drop by sometime,’ Claire said. ‘You must be wondering how I knew it was you. Well, he has your photo in his office.’

  ‘Can I see him?’

  ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘Do you know when he’ll be back?’

  ‘Unfortunately, I don’t. I haven’t actually seen him today, but he emailed me this morning saying that he was seeing Mrs Rideau.’

  Summer frowned.

  ‘He has a meeting this afternoon. I presume he’ll be back by then. I can show you your office. Your father spent a lot of time thinking about the layout and furniture. I think it looks grand.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll let him do that. I’ll wait in his office, if that’s okay.’

  ‘It’s been shut since I arrived this morning. I don’t have a key.’

  ‘Does he always lock his office?’

  ‘Umm… no. Not usually.’

  Summer stared at the wooden door. Joseph P Rideau printed in gold ink over a dark grey marble plaque.

  ‘I’ll come back later,’ she said. ‘Would you kindly ask him to ring me when he’s back?’

  ‘I can call him now.’

  ‘That’s not necessary. Ask him to call me when he’s free.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Passing the building’s official car park on her way out, she noticed Pierre’s BMW. He couldn’t have been seeing her mum if the car was here. She went back to Claire.

  ‘His car is downstairs. Are you sure he’s not here?’

  ‘Maybe he’s back, but he could be meeting one of his associates. He does lunch meetings a lot.’

  Summer wearily took the elevator back down again and waited at a café on the ground floor, watching people tucking in their lunches in the square. She’d rather be in DC, eating hotdogs with the wolves, but she’d wanted to be with Pierre and her mum. Coming back to Sydney had been the right thing to do. At least she and Pierre could be each other’s support now while her mum slipped away from them. Christmas wasn’t too far away. Life could be all right with Pierre. It could be.

  Three cups of tea later, two visits to the ladies’ and an hour of wandering around the city centre, Summer returned to Pierre’s office. Pierre’s BMW was still there. A faint scent in the air caused her chest to tighten instinctively. Yesterday she’d thought Pierre’s skin had looked like it was about to rot, right now she could almost smell it.

  She squeezed into a crowded elevator, then ran to the Rideau & Associates’ doors. Once again she checked in with Claire.

  ‘I haven’t heard back from him. Are you okay, Ms Rideau?’

  ‘I’m just going to wait here,’ she said, and sat herself on the couch.

  When Claire disappeared from her desk, Summer sneaked to Pierre’s door. His secretary didn’t have the key, but Summer knew she had to go in. She’d learned it from Sherlock Holmes, she’d practiced on Jake’s bedroom door, she was hoping it would work on Pierre’s fancy lock. She poked her hairpins inside the keyhole; one pin was a V shape, the other she’d bent into an L shape.

  The lock clicked and the door opened.

  Was the odour she’d smelled down in the carpark instinct or bond?

  Pierre’s body swung lightly as the air flowed through the open door. His head hung almost sideways as his neck was pulled to the ceiling fan above his desk. He’d used two ties – his favourite blue-red stripes, and the croc-patterned one. This office was housed in an old building, with high ceiling and sturdy fans. Pierre had stacked a chair on top of his desk to reach the fan.

  So he’d never even left the office from the night before. He’d sent an email to Claire so she w
ouldn’t check on him.

  How long had he been hanging?

  His lips had already turned blue, but his skin still looked like a man’s skin. His cheek was swollen, maybe from where she’d slapped him, or maybe from the suffocation. On the floor, right next to his desk, she found a note.

  I love you, Catherine. I love you, Summer.

  My life is one long nightmare. No one deserves to live through it. I hope you understand. I need to wake up from it, and this is the only way. I hope Jake will forgive me and perhaps we can reunite soon. But whatever happens in the afterlife, I pray my love for you all can see me through.

  She folded the note and put it in her jacket pocket.

  Joseph Pierre Rideau was dead… The man behind the success of the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement. The man who’d saved Bobby Swinburne from a 20-year sentence. The man who’d loved his wife but had another woman. The man who’d loved his daughter but hurt her.

  Summer walked backwards, her gaze hopscotching between Pierre and her own image pressed in a silver frame on his desk. The chair he’d used to reach the fan was lying sideways. She wanted to turn it upright and step on it herself and hug him, tap on his cheek and call him Dad. But she turned and left the room as screams started to rise around her.

  How dare you, Pierre! Tears streamed down her face, but she kept walking.

  7

  Penguin cemetery

  Joseph Russo gazed at the Bass Strait from the eastern end of the Penguin Cemetery. Emily’s grave was on the other side of the cemetery – a quarter-plot for her urn – next to her parents, as she’d requested the day her parents had died. He’d been there just now, laying a bouquet of white tulips and spending a few minutes telling his wife that Cornelia had turned 18 this year and was loving theatre, and Carlton – well – Carlton would be all right, he just needed time. Before he’d left her grave, he whispered: ‘I hope you’ve found your happiness, Emily. I always think of you.’