Sirens wailed in the distance. Jasmine’s cheeks flushed scarlet and beads of perspiration glistened on her forehead. She leaned over the dark, shadowed water, swirling and roiling below and wondered what would happen if she jumped.
All the sounds around her mingled into one and the sirens snapped off. Her head thumped, pounding with every wave that rolled beneath her, and panicked tears began to fall, slipping down her burning cheeks and into the river.
The whispers that threaded from the pavement, and all along the bridge behind her, were mortifying and she closed her eyes. She stood, teetering on the edge of oblivion, on the edge of madness, still clutching the damned locket inside her hand. It burned within her grasp but she could not uncurl her fingers. Instead she severed the last thread of sanity and allowed her trembling legs to fold.
Footsteps echoed, thudding on the pavement mirroring her thumping heart, and as her legs crumpled, large hands caught her up within firm arms. She was too tired and too humiliated to fight and allowed the police officer to pull her from the wall. He placed her on the ground and she sank to the floor, and her weary tears were the only things permitted to fall.
Another officer crouched down beside her. “Are you okay?” she asked, concern evident in her wide blue eyes. She rested a soft hand on Jasmine’s shoulder and repeated herself. “I’m Officer Fox, are you okay?”
Jasmine finally looked up, blue lights flashed, reflecting in the cars on the bridge, and then to her horror someone in a bright green uniform pushed through the crowd. The paramedic hurried to Jasmine’s side, but before he had a chance to say anything, Jasmine pushed away, her eyes darting wildly to and fro. Faces in the crowd blurred and noise hummed and buzzed just out of her levels of comprehension. She thrust away as the paramedic reached towards her again. “I’m fine!” she cried, balling up her fists in front of her.
A radio hissed to her side and the police officer who had rescued her walked a couple of paces away. His voice rang in her ears as awareness returned. “She’s fine, paramedic’s with her. She’s Joe’s lass, Joe Scott.” The radio hissed again and a voice mumbled incomprehensively back and the officer replied into his radio. “Yes, Joe Scott’s girl. Can you radio him?”
“Please…” whispered Jasmine, “please…” She sniffed and hurriedly wiped her tears away.
“What is it?” asked Officer Fox.
“Please don’t…” she choked.
The paramedic glanced at the officer. “She’s fine. Can we get her to the ambulance?”
Jasmine’s face paled further still. “Are you arresting me?”
The officer smiled, showing friendly dimples and white teeth. She shook her head. “Of course not, but it’d be good to get you checked over…”
The paramedic leaned close. “We need to know you’re alright, that you’re…”
“…not mad?” offered Jasmine. “I’m not mad. I wasn’t doing anything stupid…”
“You were standing on the edge of a bridge.” The male officer approached radio still in hand.
“I know!” Jasmine nodded. “But I didn’t mean anything by it!”
“There are some very scared people over there.” He indicated the crowd. “They didn’t know what you were doing or what state of mind you were in. Still don’t.”
“What were you doing on the bridge?” asked Officer Fox.
Jasmine shook her head, the locket still burning within her fist. “Nothing much, just, just looking…” She knew how lame she sounded and desperately wanted to melt away.
“Looking at what?” demanded the other policeman.
“Neil, she’s had a shock, leave it ‘til later. Joe wouldn’t appreciate it.” Officer Fox sent the policeman a glare.
“Then he can have the paperwork,” he replied. “You watch her. I’m going to get this crowd dealt with, move these cars on and talk to the witness.” He stalked away and Jasmine’s face turned crimson.
Jasmine buried her head, letting her hair fall over her face. She didn’t think the day could get any worse, but a yell, a distressed cry from the crowd told her it could.
“Jasmine!” the voice yelled.
“Oh, great!” cried Jasmine, “That’s it, throw my name everywhere while I just die down here!”
It took her mother thirty seconds to push through the gaggle of people and reach her daughter. She dropped to her knees and gazed at her child. Half of Jasmine wanted to fall into her mother’s arms, the other half wanted to run away. She stared up at her mother’s face, but couldn’t read the emotion behind her eyes. Jasmine’s heart swelled and her eyes beseeched, and she very nearly lost herself as she reached out to Mum.
Mum gazed at her, her eyes flicking from one to the other, and then she leaned back on her heels. “How could you do this Jasmine? How could you put us through this?”
Jasmine shrank back against the cold, hard wall and retreated back inside her armour.
“I can’t believe you did this! Can you just put yourself in our shoes for a moment, just a moment, that’s all I ask, just listen to me! Can you imagine what I felt when I saw the flashing lights, just that! The flashing blue lights, do you not think I’ve been there before? Do I deserve this?” She paused for a breath. “When Freya died, I saw flashing blue lights for months after, everywhere, they were everywhere!”
“I didn’t call the police…” began Jasmine.
“Someone did!” cried Mum.
“It’s okay,” said Officer Fox. “We’re a public service…”
“I know what you are, my husband’s a police officer too!” said Mum.
“And he’s on his way.” The male officer strode back to them.
Mum looked up, stood and took the officer’s hand. “Neil, thank you.”
“Officer Holden today, ma’am,” he said and winked at her. “Joe’s on his way.” She smiled and blushed, and Jasmine grimaced. “And you can take that look off of your face, madam.” He turned to Jasmine. “You’ve caused enough hassle for one day.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Mum shaking her head. “It’s been one thing after another.”
Officer Holden nodded and looked away. “Oh, for goodness sake—you could get a lorry through there! Sir, Sir! Save my wing mirror!” He bolted across the road to encourage a driver between his police car and the ambulance.
Mum looked back at Jasmine. “I don’t know what to do with you!”
Jasmine sulked and pulled her knees up close. The woman who had been trying to talk her off the bridge walked towards the small group around Jasmine. Officer Fox stood and the lady smiled gesturing to Jasmine. “I hope you’re okay,” she said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t have done more.”
Jasmine smiled back, but her mum spoke. “She’s fine, I’m sorry you had to get caught up in this! It was just a childish selfish thing!”
The woman raised her brow. “She looked very upset, I just wanted to be sure she was okay…”
“She is,” said Mum.
“Jasmine?” The lady bent towards her. “The policeman told me your name. I hope you are okay. I saw how confused you looked…” She ignored Jasmine’s mum as she began to interrupt. “I just want you to know that I care, and I hope you’ll be okay.”
Conflicted emotions swam in Jasmine’s mind. Guilt and hope surfaced together. She tried to smile up at the woman, but her lips wobbled and her eyes filled with tears again.
“It’s okay,” said the lady. “Just wanted you to know.”
Jasmine managed a watery smile and nodded. This stranger’s compassion moved her, lit a fire of hope within her belly and warmed her. Jasmine rose from the ground and stood awkwardly. She wanted to hug this woman, to bury her head in her motherly concern, but the woman just smiled and nodded back, then moved away, disappearing into the dispersing crowd.
Her mum opened her mouth and Jasmine’s heart froze. Her feet itched again and she spun on the spot and took off. Shouts followed her, but she didn’t want to hear them. As tears blurred her sight she dashed right int
o a hard, uniformed body. It was with a flood of relief that she stared up and into her father’s eyes.
Once more words rebounded off the dining room walls.
“The policeman said you actually jumped, that he saved you!” Mum’s voice was about to become hysterical.
“I didn’t jump…” began Jasmine. “Not technically…”
“Technically or not, you fell! You actually fell, and he saved you!”
“Rachel.” Dad tried to calm his wife and placed his hand on her arm, but she shook it off.
“Don’t Rachel me! You daughter could have killed herself, she almost killed herself!” Her pitch rose with each word. “She was going to kill herself!”
“I wasn’t going to kill myself, there are better ways than jumping off a bridge!” protested Jasmine.
Her father gazed at her. “I know you weren’t trying to do anything stupid…”
“Stupid!” Mum shrieked. “It was stupid, really stupid! Who stands on a bridge if they’re not trying to commit suicide, unless they’re doing something really stupid?”
Dad continued. “It is serious though, no matter what you were doing there. Neil actually said, to me, that he thinks you fainted…”
Jasmine shrugged, it didn’t matter what happened.
“You see how dangerous it was though?” Dad asked. “The river’s low, do you know what could have happened if you’d fallen in?”
“She could have died!” Mum cried. “Broken her neck!”
“You could have seriously hurt yourself. I know the river looks deep, but sometimes it’s not.” Dad watched his daughter as she stood at the window, staring out with her back to them.
“But, it’s okay, I’m fine.” The glass fogged as she spoke.
“Yeah, everything’s okay if you’re fine. Damn to hell the rest of us!” Mum wiped tears away on the back of her sleeve and ignored her husband’s glance of concern. “Forget what the rest of us have been through!”
Jasmine shook her head and held her breath.
“We’ve been through this before…”
No kidding we have, thought Jasmine.
“When I saw those blue lights, you can’t imagine what I went through…”
Oh, I can, I know by heart what you went through…
“I saw her on the road, dying…”
And here we go…
“We lost Freya, and we can’t ever go through that again, I can’t lose you too!” Mum dissolved into tears and Jasmine lost her temper.
“You’ve already lost me!” she shouted. “The moment I knew I’d never measure up, that was when you lost me! Years ago, when I watched you, a grief-crazed woman on the beach—not a bridge, a beach—walking into the water in your leather boots, your good ones, and searching for a stupid rainbow! That’s when you lost me, when I knew I could never be Freya!”
Two sets of eyes locked onto Jasmine’s in breathless silence.
Two minutes later Jasmine’s eyes narrowed and she braced herself as she stared at her mother. “Come on Mum…tell me it’s not true, tell me you love me, come and hug me. Show me I’m as good as Freya!”
She watched Mum’s fingers squirm and kept her gaze fixed. Silent tears rolled down Mum’s face, dripping onto her fingers, but she made no attempt to stop them. Jasmine wanted to grab her mother’s wringing hands and hold them still, she wanted to slip into her mum’s arms and feel them embrace her. She craved her mother’s acceptance. Instead her arms folded tight against her chest and her mother was unable to penetrate the wall that grew between them, or cross the chasm that divided them.
Her dad moved forward, his arms outstretched, but Jasmine shook her head and her gaze never left her mum. He faltered then kept advancing and Jasmine held up her hand. “No, I know you love me, it’s her…” She gestured her mother. “It’s her I need…”
She hadn’t meant to say need, but it had beaten the word want out of her mouth.
Mum did not move and Jasmine’s heart began to burn. Pain seared through it and rage, an animalistic wrath, began to boil. She broke eye contact and stared at her feet, trying to prevent the stinging tears that rested behind her eyelids.
Her mother’s refusal to speak opened wounds and tore at Jasmine’s soul, and the girl struggled to control her fury.
“Jasmine…” Dad began.
“Don’t!” She released the word with utter contempt. She raised her head and stared right past her mother. On the wall behind Mum, beside the notice-board hung the pretty, delicate frame, framing her sister’s list of dreams. Jasmine began to chant in a low voice. “Parks, sandcastles, chocolate cakes, painting…” Her eyes blurred and she roughly wiped away her tears. “…flowers, chocolate,” she chuckled, “and more chocolate, paddle in the sea, and rainbows, damn rainbows. Why those damn rainbows?” Jasmine’s fists were so tight her claret-red painted fingernails had already marked her palms.
An uneasy silence consumed the room, and Dad fidgeted, staring from his wife to his daughter. He was used to hardened criminals, but the women in his life were different, so very different.
Jasmine, unable to hold back, stalked across the room, her boots clicking on the tiles. She swiped the picture frame with Freya’s list from the wall and threw it with such vehemence that the glass shattered, splintering across the floor.
It elicited a distraught squeak from her mother and Mum’s hands flew to her face.
Jasmine bent down and brushed glass off her boot, then reached into the frame and pulled out the list. Her mother watched with her hands clamped over her mouth and her Dad’s mouth dropped wide. Jasmine felt only rage as she tore the list in half, slowly and defiantly, and then tore it again.
Muffled sobs escaped her mum and her dad’s face paled. Jasmine dropped the pieces at her feet and strode out of the room.
She heard Mum’s sobs as she scrabbled on the floor and her father’s heavy gait as he grabbed a dustpan and brush. It was Mum’s words that cut the deepest, words that whispered after her. “I’ve lost too much already!”
Jasmine bounded up the stairs, two at a time, slammed her bedroom door and threw herself onto her bed. She pummelled and screamed into the pillow. Then she sat up and stared rigidly at the door. Her shoulders shook as she breathed short, sharp gulps, frantically fighting the desire to cry. She screwed up the duvet cover beneath her hands and glared wildly about the room. Her eyes settled on books, then her mirror, then scissors sitting plainly on the desk. They glinted at her and she grabbed them. She caught her face in the mirror and noticed the fire in her green eyes as she fiercely roamed her appearance. She grabbed a handful of hair and held it out from her head. She thrust her fingers inside the scissors and held them to her clump of hair, but she couldn’t do it.
She gripped the scissors tight and released another guttural cry of rage.
Her image glared back at her, eyes the colour of a brewing storm, and she drew a sudden breath as she noticed her bare neck. The locket was gone. Her eyes darted to and fro searching her memory. The last time she remembered it, it was looped about her hand dangling over the river. She shoved her hands into her jeans, and there it was tangled, but safe, in her pocket. She pulled it out and dropped it on the desk. The locket opened and Freya’s cute grin gazed up at her. She resisted the urge to plunge the scissors right into her sister’s pixie face.
She left the necklace on the desk, turned on her heels, and stomped out of her room. She flung her parents’ bedroom door open and stormed inside. There he was, sitting all prim and proper, and very violet, on Mum’s pillow. Purple Ted gazed up at her, his scratched glass button eyes meeting her crazed glare. She stroked the scissors and grabbed the bear. She held him at arm’s length, and raised the blades, but her arm stayed aloft as she gazed at the teddy bear. Tears glistened in her eyes and reflected in his, and she couldn’t harm the bear. He was too much like her own Blue Ted.
She cast the stuffed bear back onto Mum’s pillow and retreated. She threw the scissors onto her bed and pushed her wind
ow open with such force the glass shook. She climbed up onto the sill, swung her legs over and was off down the wall in a flash.
Up at the top of the hill she climbed onto the old oak bench and lowered onto her back. The day’s humiliation flooded her and she allowed her tears to flow, sliding from her eyes and into her ears. She propped her head up on her arms and let the tears drip down her face.
All she’d wanted to do was cleanse Freya from her life. Instead, her actions had reinforced the divide. All she’d done was alienate her mother further. Mum wanted to love her, but how could she when all Jasmine did was hurt her? Jasmine wept, wondering how she’d ever break down the walls that embraced her mother.
When she’d done crying she roughly wiped her eyes and stared up at the sky.
Wispy clouds hung there, right up high in the blue sky. The sun had begun drifting to the west, lighting the clouds as it resumed its descent. Jasmine’s gaze moved from the delicate curls of clouds to the larger masses below. Huge, white puffs wandered slowly above her. She followed the billowing clouds and a smile lightly kissed her lips.
There on the horizon sat a cluster of cloud, whipped into a wispy mountain, and a castle sat bathed in the sun’s golden light on the side. Jasmine stared, entranced by the vision, and pulled herself up to gaze at the clouds in wonder. Her troubles faded as she let her imagination wander. She trailed the clouds, imagining a footpath to the castle and watched as turrets appeared as the wind swirled. She imagined dragons, and battles, and hamlets spreading out beneath the castle, and an entire world formed in her mind.
She watched as the turrets dissolved and the clouds moved. The castle melted into the sky and the mountain dispersed. She sighed, and relaxed back against her arms. She saw a huge, white cotton cloud bird float across the horizon and the stretches of grey and white formed a bay and a beach then she giggled as a fluffy poodle sailed past.
The poodle’s body merged with its legs and the wind whipped up a flurry of cumulus. The dog’s ears rounded and its body fattened, and then a bear, a plump teddy bear drifted across the blue.
Beneath the Distant Star Page 12