Saving Rose

by Kate Genet

  Backing away from the front window, Claire bent down further and peered in the back-passenger door’s window, trying to see inside the car. Only the front part of the roof had been so drastically damaged – there was a chance.

  It was too dusty to see. Instead, Claire grasped the door handle and wrenched the back door open, still feeling Zoe’s eyes on her, even though they could see nothing.

  The back seat was empty.

  For a moment, Claire stood in baffled shock. What she was seeing didn’t make any sense. Backing out, she stood up and gazed around the street.

  It was populated with grey ghosts, people standing rooted to the spot or drifting in unpremeditated circles, coated in the same dust as the cars, road, everything. She looked at their eyes and they all stared back, gaze glassy with shock.

  ‘Did anyone see a little girl?’ Claire yelled out, screaming at the milling people. More eyes turned toward her, heads shaking side to side in wobbly negatives.

  ‘Fuck!’ Claire swore, then ducked back to look again in the car, squinting into the dark interior. If Rose wasn’t in the car, then where the hell was she?

  Maybe Zoe hadn’t picked her up yet. Calming her hammering heart, Claire crouched down, half in the car now, hands groping around on the back seat. They came up with something sticky and she yelped, then fought against the urge to drop whatever it was. Rose wasn’t in the car. This wasn’t some sticky, severed piece of…whatever.

  In fact, it was a half-eaten doughnut. Claire stared at it a moment, drawing herself back out into the light, turning it over in her hand. Someone with small teeth had feasted on it. Someone who liked to lick up the jam and cream.

  There was only one person that was going to be.

  Claire laid the doughnut on a little bit of clear roof, then squirmed down into the back seat again, trying not to see the way the driver’s seat sat buckled and twisted against her.

  The car seat was definitely empty, the safety belt lying undone and limp. The seat beside it was clear except for a sippy cup. She groped around on the floor, contorting herself so she could reach and hoping like hell that the world could leave off shaking again while she was in there. It was dark and close enough already. She tensed herself for an emergency exit.

  Her hand touched something else and she spread her fingers over it, figuring out finally that it was a folded-up stroller. So Zoe had picked up Rose and popped her into her car seat, folding up the pushchair and sliding it onto the floor.

  Something else lay on the folded frame and she curled her fingers around it, drew it with her backwards out of the rear of the little car. Then stood in the drifting dust, not hearing the sirens all around, and stared at what she held, a frown grooved deeply between her eyes.

  It was a doll. Not a Barbie doll, but something similar. Inside Claire’s head a memory loosened. Something – she’d heard something recently – Rose talking…

  Rapunzel. That was it, and this was the doll. Rose had asked if her daddy was a Prince Charming and then at the end of the conversation with her mum, she’d said something funny. Claire strained to remember it.

  She nodded at the doll. Rapunzel was no longer interested in Prince Charming; she was going to marry her horse.

  ‘Entirely commendable,’ Claire croaked. She’d be more tempted by the horse too.

  But that wasn’t the point.

  The point was here was Rose’s favourite doll. Dropped in the foot well of Zoe’s car.

  Which to Claire’s mind more than implied, with everything else she knew, that Rose had recently been in the car.

  She glanced through the front window and winced at the sight of her friend, feeling the hot sting of tears again. Her hand gripped the doll tighter.

  ‘I'm going to find her now, Zoe,’ she whispered. ‘But I'm sorry that means I have to leave you here alone.’

  There was a small crowd of people standing in a fan behind her when she turned. They reached out for her, offering comfort, solidarity in shock. She shook them off.

  ‘Did any of you see a little girl? There was a little girl in the car too.’ She stared helplessly at them. ‘Her name’s Rose,’ she said, hoping giving the name would somehow make them think harder.

  ‘Yeah, there was a little kid in the car,’ a young guy said, stepping closer and peering into the car. He shook his head. ‘Jeeze, the poor woman. First her husband was beating up on her, then this.’

  Claire jerked her head to attention. ‘What?’

  The guy scratched at a dusty head of blonde curls and looked up and down the road, face bleached and haggard. ‘Don’t see him now,’ he said, ‘but there was a guy harassing this woman. Had her shoved up against the car looking like he wanted to hurt her bad, you know? Was only just stopping himself.’

  ‘Fuck!’ Claire said. ‘Why didn’t you do something?’

  ‘Hey lady, who said I didn’t? Told the dude to back the fuck off and I helped the lady into her car.’ He paused. ‘Then the fucking earth started shaking and the whole fucking world seemed to fall apart.’ He stared around, shook his head. ‘Look at this mess,’ he said.

  Claire held up the doll in front of his face. ‘Focus,’ she said. ‘What happened afterwards. Did you see the man take the little girl?’

  The young guy shook his head, a dazed look coming into his eyes. ‘Didn’t see anything after that. Too busy trying to avoid death.’ He blinked. ‘Then figuring out whether I actually had or not.’ There were nods of agreement from those around him.

  ‘Maybe the little girl climbed out of the car by herself,’ a dusty woman in a business suit said. She was holding a shoe in her right hand, the heel snapped off.

  Claire scanned the street. Then shook her head. Looked back at the car. Zoe was buckled in the front seat. Which meant that if Rose was in the car, she would already have been buckled in too. And she wouldn’t have been able to let herself out. Probably. Claire didn’t know if it was possible or not. Kids were pretty inventive. And kinda squirmy.

  But the back door had been closed. Would Rose have bothered to close it before wandering off up the street? And wouldn’t she have stayed by her mother?

  All this went through Claire’s head, tick, tick, tick. She tuned everything out and concentrated, moving around the car, searching in the rubble for any signs of Danny. Because from what she had heard, he had been right here.

  He was gone for certain now. There were dusty marks, a couple of footprints, but Danny himself was nowhere in sight.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ It was the business woman. She had a cell phone in her other hand now and held it up. ‘I can’t get through,’ she said.

  A terse nod was all Claire gave her. ‘Keep trying. The system will be struggling to cope.’ She came back around and looked in at Zoe again, feeling her heart fill with unshed tears. Zoe had been alive when she, Claire, got here. Barely, but still, alive was alive.

  And Danny had taken Rose and walked away from her, knowing Zoe could see him.

  People didn’t think in ways that were always right during emergency situations. Claire knew that first hand. She knew that extremely well. But sometimes they also took advantage of circumstances.

  Bending down, she brushed her fingertips across Zoe’s, still pressed against the door.

  ‘Danny’s got her,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what happened between the two of you this morning, but I'm going to find out, okay baby?’ She touched a lock of Zoe’s dark hair, got blood on her fingers. ‘I promise. And I'm going to make sure Rose is safe.’ A weak smile. ‘I'm her auntie, and I guess I'm finally going to make good on that. I'm so sorry I wasn’t around more, Zoe. I'm so sorry I missed out on so much.’

  Something caught her eye. It was Zoe’s phone, dropped on her lap. Claire could just see it through the window. She didn’t hesitate, threading one arm through the gap and straining her fingers towards it. They grazed the plastic cover, nudged it, and Claire shifted her position, had another go. She got hold of a corner, drew it gingerly out of the b
roken car, bumping Zoe as she did so.

  ‘Sorry, Zoe,’ she whispered, sliding the phone into her front pocket. ‘I love you. You’ll always be my sister.

  ‘And I'm going to go find your daughter now.’

  24

  Rose bumped against his shoulder as he jogged up the street. He wished she’d stop her yowling; his nerves were near enough to shot as it was.

  And she was heavy. When had she got this heavy? If only she’d stop her bloody squirming and screaming. No, she couldn’t get down. No, she couldn’t go back to her bloody mother.

  Fuck.

  The bitch couldn’t possibly survive, could she? He hoped not, even though he didn’t really believe she’d gone spilling the beans all over the bloody town. She would have come to get Rose before anything else, no bloody phone calls, hateful-crazy-lying bitch.

  As for the photographs, so what if she’d looked through them? She hadn’t had time to show anyone, and now she never would.

  He’d left before she’d died, carted Rose away up the street, feeling Zoe’s eyes boring into his back with the kid holding out her arms and screaming for her mother. That was going to leave some psychological scars, he was sure, but there was nothing for it. He had to leave before some nosy twit got between him and his daughter. The guy who had interfered on the footpath, he was probably still there somewhere, and Danny knew he had to get out of there before Mr. Concerned Bloody Citizen got even more fucking concerned.

  Rose was working herself into a proper state. Her little body was rigid in his arms. Hard to carry her when she was as long and stiff as a log. Shifting his grip, he cut across another road, heading for home. They’d be fine once he got away from Zoe. That guy wasn’t going to call the police; he wouldn’t get through if he tried.

  If that had been the damage in their little group of shops, Danny knew the rest of the city would look a lot worse. There were some really old buildings in Christchurch. He imagined an awful lot of them would be piles of rubble right about now.

  This shake had been much worse than the one back in September. He could still feel the aftershocks rumbling under his feet. One of them strong enough to make him cling to a handy fence post and squeeze his eyes shut until it passed. It was easy to decide he hated earthquakes with a burning passion.

  His mouth was still full of brick dust, but he grinned anyway, sliding his tongue over the rough surface of his teeth. Honestly though, as fucking scary as it had been, could the earthquake have happened at a better time?

  It had sure saved him the problem of deciding what to do with his wife.

  Because he would have had to do something. Taking a quick gander around, he stepped over a low fence and walked at a quick march through someone’s garden, ducking past an overgrown rosebush, then swearing as a thorn got stuck in Rose’s hair.

  The kid didn’t even pause in her caterwauling. He could almost make out the word mummy repeated somewhere in there amongst all the screaming, but it was natural for a kid to cry for its mum when it was scared. It didn’t mean he was doing anything wrong.

  Finally his house was just across the road.

  His house now. His and Rose’s. Zoe wouldn’t be coming back to it ever again. He’d seen what state she was in.

  She’d be dead by now.

  Wouldn’t have taken but a few minutes. Hell, she was mostly dead when he’d pulled Rose out of the car, dragging her over the back seat and free, closing the door, hoisting her onto his hip and walking away through a fog of dust.

  There was something wrong with his house.

  It took perhaps two full minutes of standing in the driveway staring to figure out what the problem was. His mind took that long to comprehend. It kept wanting to see what it was used to seeing.

  But the house wasn’t the right shape now. Not entirely.

  It was the chimney. There was no chimney.

  He took a few steps back, craned his head up, trying to see the roof. There wasn’t much of a roof either. The damned chimney had collapsed right through it.

  ‘Shit!’ he yelled. There was a big hole in his house.

  And fuck if it didn’t look just a little slumped to the right on its foundations.

  He stood there, holding Rose, who was still rigid and screaming, and pressed his lips into a thin line.

  He should never have listened to Zoe. It was her who thought it would be the bloody bees’ knees to buy an old house.

  Let’s buy an old villa, she said. They have loads of character, she said. It’ll be great, she said. Well, it wasn’t great. It was fucked. It was the little crooked house with a giant fucking hole in its roof.

  What was he supposed to do about that?

  Where the hell was he supposed to live now? Him and Rose? He knew he couldn’t take the kid in there. There were aftershocks to worry about.

  The bloody pile of sticks would fall right down on his head.

  He had to go in there right now, though, and not to assess the damage. That he could see perfectly well from exactly where he stood.

  Shifting Rose to his other side, he patted her back, shushed her, told her it was all going to be okay. She ignored him, and he patted a bit harder. He had to go into the house.

  Zoe had found his photos. Which meant they were no longer locked in the cupboard, away from prying eyes. Instead, knowing her and her messy ways, they were probably tipped all over the floor in there. He couldn’t see her picking up after herself and putting them neatly back where they belonged. Nope, he couldn’t see that at all.

  Which meant he needed to do it. Had to go in there, pick them up, put them somewhere safe. He had no idea how she’d managed to get into the locked cupboard in the first place, but it sure wasn’t with the key. That he kept with him at all times. His hand wandered to the pocket of his pants and the keyring in there. It was safe.

  Walking up the driveway, he put out a hand and touched the weatherboards of the old house, made his way along the path to the front door. The little stained-glass window in it had a long crack running through it.

  Rose was still screaming in his ear. But he needed to get in the house. Fumbling for his keys, he slid the right one into the lock and took a deep breath.

  ‘Danny! You can’t take Rose in there!’

  Spinning around on his heel, Danny looked down the path and growled.

  Claire.

  Zoe’s best friend. Practically sisters. Always talking on the phone, Skyping, whatever.

  He didn’t like her. He didn’t like her type. Even when she was having a good laugh, he reckoned part of her brain was always assessing, calculating, trying to see things that weren’t necessarily meant to be seen.

  He hated the way she was always so nice to him the few times they’d met, and yet somehow never managed to hide the fact that she despised him. Zoe had laughed and called him an idiot when he’d told her that Claire didn’t like him, but he knew.

  She never said or did anything wrong, hell, she was hardly ever even around – and that was a good thing – but he knew she didn’t think he was good enough for her precious Zoe. It was just sometimes the way she looked a moment too long at him, face neutral, eyes not giving away anything.

  He didn’t enjoy it, and he sure as hell didn’t feel affectionate towards her. She noticed too much.

  Now how had she turned up, right when he didn’t need her?

  ‘Zoe,’ she was spluttering. ‘I saw Zoe.’

  In a surreptitious movement, he slipped the keys back into his pocket, giving the door a little nudge to make it look like it was already open.

  ‘I wasn’t going in,’ he corrected. ‘We were coming out.’ Fortunately both of them were covered in enough dust to make it believable.

  Then he perked up as though he’d just realised what she’d said, ‘Zoe? Is she all right?’

  Claire gazed at him, eyes going blank for a moment. ‘What?’ she asked, her mouth hanging open like she was stupid.

  ‘Where is she?’ He patted his pockets like he was loo
king for his phone. It was in there, but he wasn’t going to let her know that. ‘I need to call her. Rose needs her – she’s been screaming for her ever since the earthquake happened.’ He pretended to shudder. ‘We were inside. The chimney came down. We were lucky we weren’t killed. It’s a mess.’ He blinked at his wife’s friend and made a slight movement, pointing Rose at her.

  She reached for the hysterical child, an automatic gesture he’d been counting on. He tipped her into her arms. Still, it astonished him when Rose collapsed onto Claire, her little arms slithering around the woman’s neck. Rose barely even knew Claire.

  The flare of jealousy made him want to snatch his child back, but he resisted. He needed to go inside and here was his ready-made opportunity.

  ‘I need to call Zoe,’ he said. ‘My phone’s inside. Please look after Rose, I’ll be right back.’

  But she didn’t let him go. A hand clamped onto his sleeve. Eyes the colour of the deep green sea she so liked to go sailing around on regarded him, full of questions.

  ‘I just saw Zoe, Danny,’ she said, her words careful like he couldn’t be trusted. ‘Are you telling me you haven’t seen her?’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said, arranging his features into a concerned frown.

  ‘No,’ said Claire. ‘I don’t understand. You were just there. She had Rose with her, had just taken Rose away from you, and you took Rose from the back seat of her car after the quake hit.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘After the quake hit and killed your wife.’

  He pretended to stagger backwards at the news. ‘What?’ he said, his voice a satisfactory squeak. There was no way Claire Wilde could prove a single word of what she was saying. She hadn’t been there.

  ‘Zoe’s dead?’ he squeaked again.

  Those accusing eyes blinked at him. ‘You know she is. Although she wasn’t when you walked away from her, was she?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, drawing himself to his full height. It was only an inch or two taller than her, but it felt good anyway. Righteous. ‘I was here when the quake hit. Here with Rose. Zoe had called, she was coming home for lunch. She was stopping at the bakery and then coming home.’ He looked at Rose. ‘Jesus, are you sure?’ he asked. ‘Are you sure she’s dead?’ He made himself slump again.