“You won’t risk Jessica.”
“You’ll take that gamble?”
“You win.” Unhappy, he surrendered. “What more do you want to know?”
“The files report that Rick was totally out of control. Your father wrote it. There’s nothing specific. What happened? What did he do?
Exactly?”
“I wouldn’t …”
“You’ve taken over the practice. Your father’s discussed it with you. He had to.”
“Of course,” he agreed. “Rick’s behaviour had critically deteriorated. He became unmanageable. At the time, they didn’t know why. They thought he was developing symptoms of …”
“Cut the jargon, George!”
A dog barked. The lights across the road came on. “For God’s sake,” he whispered. “You’re making a spectacle of yourself.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“He went on a rampage. He was quite insane. A raving maniac. Is that what you wanted to hear!”
“Did he hurt anyone?”
“No, he didn’t. They stopped him.”
“How was he stopped, George?”
“Not here! This is not the place.”
“I warn you …”
“He was stopped. That’s it.”
“George!”
“Jake called the police. They had to shoot.”
To die.
He steadied her. “You shouldn’t have pushed me.”
“Is that all of it?”
“There was no inquiry. No publicity. Jake had the police over a barrel. It remains unclear. Was their action warranted? It’s a difficult area. A cover-up was arranged.”
“That story was accepted.”
“Cover-ups abound. You know that better than I.”
“So they got away with it. Rick was put away.”
“He was well looked after. It was the very best. They were at the forefront of their field. Their reputation was immaculate.”
“It’s still a madhouse.”
“It’s history, Gail. Leave it alone.”
The hushed reception room, the luxurious furnishings, the polished psychiatrist and his slick attendant and the happy gardener outside the office window. Calthorpe Clinic was still an asylum. A respected asylum at the forefront of their field.
“The lobotomy! It was after we married. After Jake got control!”
“Leave it alone, Gail.”
“Go to hell!”
The Mercedes screamed through the morning streets, turned down River Drive and catapulted into the driveway. Distant sirens warned of police pursuit.
The house was fully lit, every window threw its light across the expanse of manicured garden.
Still in formal dress, Jake raced down the front steps. The children and Flo watched from their windows. Neighbouring lights blared.
Police sirens and flashing lights were turning into River Drive.
She stamped on the brakes.
“What the hell are you doing!” Jake came at the car. “George’s been phoning all over town. He’s out his mind with worry.”
She maintained the pressure on the brakes. “Open the garage.”
“What the hell..!”
“Open the fucking garage!”
He balked.
She gunned the engine.
“Turn the motor off!”
“Mum!” A scream from the windows.
She inched forward, braked.
He raced for the roller door. “Wait! Wait!”
He was at the roller door.
She released the brakes, slammed the accelerator.
Jake disappeared.
She switched off the motor.
EPILOGUE
MY LAST CONTACT.
The book is written. It ends where it began. Gail sits in the chair on the freezing verandah. And still, for all I’ve learned, I have to wonder.
What is she looking at, the old woman in the wheelchair? Does she see the purple mountains, the scented silver gums, the emerald ferns, the sad willows in the park across the road?
What does she hear? The carolling magpies, the cackling kookaburras, the chirruping sparrows, the occasional passing car, the hollow ring of the woodsman’s axe, the gossip of her fellows?
What does she see? What does she hear?
Perhaps nothing captures her fleeting interest. Perhaps she simply sleeps out here on this freezing winter verandah.
Sometimes, in the last months, she’s let me close – and I ask questions. She answers and I listen. Here, in this place, I listen to her truth. They’re right, those distant people who sent her here. She’s peculiar in the head. But yes, she was young.
Then she went to Belleville. That’s how she tells it. That’s how I hear it. So just as surely as I’ve learned that no one wants to know her truth, have I learned that those predatory eyes were once innocent. I believe it. Why? Because I know the desert. I know the best of it and I know the worst of it. I know what it can do.
I know that, again and again, because of her great love for her parents and her child, Gail was selfless. As finally she was for Rick.
But in the end, she broke. That she didn’t actually kill Jake is irrelevant to her story. Though not to his. He’s still caring for her, as he always has. His motives still obscure – certainly mixed.
Was evil inherent in the youthful invalid who travelled to the desert to recuperate? Or was it inspired by the desert’s brutality?
I have come to understand that this truth, because its answer she does not herself know, Gail can never tell us.
The validity of her story must stand where I leave it. Each of us must choose between Gail’s truth and the truth of those who sent her here, those who certified her insane and those who drove her to insanity.
The nurse, on her mid-morning rounds, stops. “Gail! You’ll freeze.” She tucks a fallen blanket around the scrawny shoulders.
The sly old eyes wait; they watch the nurse retreat to the warm indoors. The gnarled old hands peel off the blanket. It falls, again, to the floor.
The old woman shivers, and the withered lips smile a secret smile. The chill mountain air caresses the scrawny shoulders.
I step forward. For the last time. “It’s finished, Gail. I’ll tell your story for you.”
The smile freezes; it’s as chill as the mountain air. “All of it?”
“I told you. I’ve researched the records in Belleville too.”
“You talked to Rick?”
“No, Gail. Rick died a long time ago.”
“He said he was happy. He was happy …” She drifts away from me. Again.
I make no attempt to rouse her. We’ve been down this road too many times. Instead, I attempt to readjust the blanket. She slaps the blanket from my hands.
The nurse comes back. “He’s here, Gail.”
The gnarled old hands clutch the blanket to the skinny breasts.
“She’s out here!” The nurse calls to the warm indoors.
The door opens. An old man, thin and grey, stooped over a heavy walking stick, limps onto the freezing verandah.
“I’ll leave you three alone.” The nurse retreats.
“I should be going.” I start to follow the nurse.
“Please stay.” The visitor nods to me, eases painfully into an adjacent chair, and asks the old woman. “How are you today?”
Gail Campbell whimpers, “Today I’m cold.”
“You like the cold, Gail,” he soothes. “Remember. You like the cold.”
“Do I?” She brushes scrawny talons across her liver-spotted brow. “Not today. Today I don’t like the cold.”
He pulls a pair of mittens, bright red soft wool from his pocket. “Alison sent these. She couldn’t come today.”
“Jess.” She watches him gently tug the mittens over her hands.
“No, Gail. Alison knitted them. She sends her love. And Angus. His wife’s expecting again. Jess sends her love, too. The children are …”
“Jess?” She
strokes the warm mittens. “Jess knitted my mittens?”
“That’s right,” he sighs. “Jess knitted your mittens.”
“Jess..” She picks convulsively at a small loose thread.
He looks at me. “She’s no better.”
“No worse, either,” I comment.
“You’re right.” He creaks to his feet. “I can’t stay long this time.”
“Such a long trip. It’s a pity to come so far.”
“For so …” Again he sighs.
“You mustn’t upset yourself, Mr Campbell. She’s happy here.”
“If only.”
“It could be so much worse,” I console.
“The family has always looked after her, you know. Ever since she first came to us. So long … so long.”
A nurse wheels Gail Campbell’s chair indoors. The old man limps beside us.
The nurse pauses at the door to the luxuriously appointed apartment. “It’s time for your nap, Gail.”
“I have to talk to Rick.” She whines in the thin crackling whimper of old age. “I want to talk to Rick.”
“He has to leave.”
“I’m sorry, Gail.” The visitor leans across the wizened body, pecks the parchment cheek. “I’ll bring Jess next time.”
“I have to talk to you, Rick.” She looks up. “Please – stay with me.”
“Jake.” As he has done so many times, he patiently corrects her. “I’m Jake.”
Her grey head shakes, as it has done so many times, and her thin lips mutter. “Not Jake.”
The nurse again comforts the old man. “You must not let her upset you so much, Mr Campbell.”
“It’s all right. I guess I should be used to it by now.” He stomps unevenly towards the exit. “I’ll see you next month.”
The nurse, watching him leave, chides her patient, “I don’t know why you insist on upsetting him, Gail. You know it’s your husband.”
“I don’t know anything of the sort.” The sly old eyes leer into the disapproving frown. “It’s not Jake. It can’t be Jake.”
“Of course it’s Jake. Now, be a good girl. Stop playing these silly games and have your nap.”
“Idiot!” Gail Campbell slaps at the disapproving white uniform. She turns to me. “They’re all idiots. Make sure you write that in your book.”
I try one last time. “You know it’s Jake.”
But her answer is as it always is. “It’s not Jake. I killed Jake.”
Dark Oasis Page 31