The Way Back

by Kylie Ladd

  ‘You’re going to put posters up?’

  ‘Yep,’ said Terry. ‘Big ones, at major intersections. I want to get something into the papers too, and the women’s mags, if the budget can stretch to it.’

  ‘The women’s mags?’

  ‘New Idea, Who, that sort of thing. Women are more observant than men.’ Terry leant across the desk, his belly spilling over its edge, and circled 100 days gone. ‘That’s to get the media interested. To give them something new, I mean. They’re still interested, they still want to run stories on Charlie, but this provides them with a fresh angle. We’ll do another press conference too, on the hundredth day.’ He reached for his diary, thumbing through it. ‘I worked it out. It’s the first week in July, July—’

  ‘I know when it is,’ Rachael said, cutting him off.

  She didn’t remember to turn her phone on again until she was finished with Terry and back in the car, checking it at a traffic light. There were six missed calls from her mother’s nursing home and another two from Matt. She pulled over to listen to her voicemail. Hello Mrs Johnson, said the first. It’s Greta from North Star. We haven’t been able to wake your mum up this morning. She seems comfortable, she’s not in pain, but we can’t rouse her. This morning? Rachael glanced at her watch. It was three o’clock now. Doctor Beerling suggested you might want to come in. Or please give us a call if you can’t. Thanks. Bye. She deleted the message, but before she could play back the second one her screen lit up with a new call—Matt, ringing from home.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘thank goodness you finally answered. Your mum’s home has been calling. I just spoke to them again. They’re worried about Ava—they say they can’t wake her up.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’ve been with Terry—this new media campaign—and I’ve only just got the messages. She had a fall last week, remember? They called us then too, but they thought everything was alright. Maybe this is something to do with that.’

  ‘You need to go in, Rachael,’ Matt said gently. ‘I’ve talked to Ava’s doctor. He thinks it might be her time.’

  ‘Her time?’ Rachael repeated, confused.

  ‘He doesn’t think she’ll last much longer. Apparently, sometimes it happens like this with dementia—the body just starts shutting down. He said she’s had trouble swallowing the last few days.’

  ‘She has? He should have told me!’ But even as she said it she realised that someone had probably called. She had stopped answering her phone weeks ago; only ever picked it up if it was Terry or Matt’s name on the screen.

  ‘Where are you?’ Matt asked.

  ‘I’ve been at the station. I’m still out near the national park, near pony club.’ It hurt to even say the words.

  ‘OK. I was waiting here in case you came home, so I could drive you, but that’ll take too long. You should go straight to North Star. I’ll meet you there.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, her mind ticking over, already recalibrating the route.

  ‘I’ll leave a note for Dan. Be careful. Don’t speed. I love you.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said again, and hung up.

  But it was too late. Rachael knew as soon as she arrived, when she passed the nurses’ station on her way to her mother’s room and the two staff there exchanged glances and hurried out to meet her.

  ‘Mrs Johnson,’ said one she didn’t recognise, ‘we just called you again. We’ve been calling all day.’

  The other was vaguely familiar, but Rachael couldn’t remember her name. Was she the unit manager? Rachael thought so, but she hadn’t been in for a while and the nurses seemed to turn over so regularly. The woman stepped forward and laid a hand on Rachael’s arm. ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Johnson,’ she said. ‘Your mother passed just ten minutes ago. Dr Cran is in with her.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Rachael said formally. Marjorie. The name came to her suddenly. ‘Thank you, Marjorie. I’ll go and see her now.’ Marjorie patted her gently and retreated back behind her desk.

  When Rachael entered the room, a caramel-skinned man was bending over her mother. He stood up as soon as he heard her and held out his hand.

  ‘Dr Cran,’ he said. ‘I’ve been caring for Mrs Menzies for the past three weeks. I don’t think we’ve met.’

  ‘Rachael Johnson. I’m her daughter.’ My own daughter is missing, she wanted to add. Almost a hundred days now. You’ll see the billboards soon. That’s why I haven’t visited. Instead she grasped his hand briefly and then sat down on the bed. Her mother lay on her back, her eyes closed, as if she was simply asleep.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Dr Cran said. ‘We’ve been trying to contact you—’

  ‘It’s all been so quick,’ Rachael murmured.

  Dr Cran gave a dry little cough. ‘Actually, she’s been sick for a week or so now.’

  Oh, fuck off, Rachael thought. Just get out. She wanted to be left alone with her mother, with her grief, though right at that moment she felt strangely empty. Maybe it was shock. Maybe it was that she just couldn’t add any more sorrow to the load she was already carrying.

  ‘I’ll give you some time with her,’ Dr Cran said, reading her mood. ‘When you’re up to it, could you come out to the nurses’ station? There’s some arrangements that will need to be made.’

  Rachael nodded, not looking up as he left the room. She took her mother’s hand, already cooling. Her nail polish was chipped, cracked; her cuticles ragged. Her mother would have hated that. A concert pianist before she had had Rachael, she had always taken pride in her hands. The nurses should have looked after her better, Rachael found herself thinking, then immediately berated herself for the notion. The nurses were busy. They didn’t have time to sit around providing manicures. If anyone should have given her a manicure, it was Rachael. She’d only visited once or twice since Charlie disappeared; she hadn’t even spoken to the nursing home over the phone. She should feel guilty, she thought, but there was no guilt. What she did feel, growing inside her, was anger: at her mother for dying when Rachael was so ill-equipped to handle it, at the thought of everything she would now have to organise, that the universe seemed hell-bent on stripping her of everyone she loved. Rachael snorted. And all those psychics, damn them, who’d each taken her money and spouted their voodoo—she’d seen five of them, and not one had predicted this.

  Matt entered the room quietly and pulled up a chair next to her. He sat for a moment in silence, then reached across and gently stroked her hair, as he had when they were dating, as he’d soothed their babies when they were little. ‘Oh, Rach,’ he said softly, and his voice was so tender that tears came to her eyes, but she couldn’t turn around to him, she couldn’t do anything other than sit and stare at her mother’s still face.

  When Dan got home from school, he was relieved to find the house was empty. Before Charlie went missing he often had it all to himself—one or both parents would be at work and Charlie would be off somewhere with Britta or at pony club or in her bedroom with the door closed. The silence that greeted him was a sanctuary. No one to cross-examine him about school or homework, no one to complain if he turned his music up or ate biscuits straight from the packet. Since that Saturday in March, though, everything had changed. He didn’t know if his mum or dad still had their jobs, but they never went to them. They spent all day at home instead, drifting from room to room like ghosts, only glancing at him, it sometimes seemed, as if to make sure he wasn’t Charlie.

  Dan dropped his school bag in the hall and made his way to the kitchen. He did have homework—an essay due tomorrow and two exercises of maths problems—but his parents no longer asked about it and no teacher was going to insist on him handing it in. It was weird, he thought, looking in the fridge for something to eat. He knew exactly how his parents felt—he knew better than anyone else in the world—but they didn’t talk about it. They couldn’t talk about it. His mum shut down any mention of Charlie unless it was to do with the latest search strategy or media campaign; his dad just shut down any conversation full stop
. Meals were eaten in silence or individually, whole days went past when they barely acknowledged each other. It was if they were all thinking the same thing, that Charlie was gone gone gone, probably dead, but no one wanted to be the first to say it out loud for fear of making it true.

  The phone rang, startling him. He let it go through to the answering machine—it was probably a journalist—but picked up when he heard his father’s voice.

  ‘Dan, Dan, are you there?’

  ‘Hey, Dad,’ he said, ‘where are you?’

  ‘At your nan’s nursing home. I meant to leave you a note. She’s not well.’ A pause. ‘Actually, she died today, about half an hour ago.’

  ‘Oh,’ Dan said. He couldn’t come up with any other words. ‘Does Mum know?’

  ‘She’s here with me. We’ll be a while. Will you be OK?’

  ‘Yeah, sure. Don’t hurry. I’ll put the chooks away.’

  ‘Thanks, mate.’

  ‘How’s Mum?’ Dan asked.

  ‘Not great. You know. I’ll see you later.’

  The line went dead and Dan replaced the handset.

  Yeah. He knew how his mum was.

  For twenty minutes he tried to play his guitar, but it wouldn’t work. He was out of practice, that was part of it—it had been ages since he’d picked it up—but he found he couldn’t concentrate either. He hadn’t been close to Nan, not since he was little, and he wasn’t upset as such, but it was weird to think of her dead. That she was finished. Kaput. Extinguished. Weird, and unsettling. One minute you were breathing, seeing, a part of the world, and the next you simply weren’t. How old had she been? Eighty-something. Eighty years of memories, thoughts, secrets, learning, just switched off at the wall like a vacuum cleaner. It gave him the creeps. Dan got up, went back to the phone in the kitchen and called Hannah.

  She arrived forty minutes later wearing jodhpurs and a jacket. Dan had just wanted to talk to her, he hadn’t asked her to come over, but as soon as he told her about his grandmother’s death she had insisted on it.

  ‘I was about to go for a ride,’ she said as he let her in. ‘My brother was going to drop me there, but I persuaded him to bring me here instead.’

  ‘Wow,’ Dan said, ‘that’s miles out of the way. He must really like you.’

  ‘Not really,’ she replied. ‘He knows about Charlie.’ Then she turned and threw her arms around him. ‘Oh God, Dan, you poor thing. You’ve been through so much.’

  He started to tell her that it was OK, that Nan hadn’t been herself for years since the dementia set in, but she was pressing her body against his and he could feel the warmth of her thighs through her jodhpurs and pretty soon he wasn’t thinking about Nan at all.

  Afterwards he lay in a daze, Hannah curled at his side. Light. That was how he felt, both weightless and glowing. How easy it had been, and how wonderful. He was giddy with light, lightheaded, ablaze. It was dark outside now, but if he raised his arm from under the covers surely its radiance would brighten the whole room. He shifted a little, just to try it, but Hannah immediately protested.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘don’t go. Stay here.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Dan said, gathering her warm, damp body to his. He buried his nose in her hair. It smelled wonderful: like straw and cinnamon and just faintly of sweat, but clean sweat, if there was such a thing.

  ‘That’s nice,’ she murmured as he gently stroked it.

  Nice? It was miraculous. Hannah, lovely Hannah, in his arms, in his bed. Hannah, whom he’d kissed once or twice since that first time out searching, but nothing like this; Hannah, who’d taken his hand in the hallway and led him to his room, who’d dimmed the light and unbuttoned his shirt, who’d encouraged him to unbutton hers. Hannah, naked, all curves and planes and shadows, her bare skin so creamy it was almost luminous, Hannah moving against him, beneath him, pulling away just long enough to unroll a condom onto his penis, then beneath him once more, opening for him, in time with him, urging him. He felt faint with heat and gratitude.

  ‘That condom,’ she mumbled against his neck, as if she knew what he was thinking. ‘My brother gave it to me in the car. I told him not to be stupid, but he made me take it.’

  ‘I love your brother,’ Dan said. ‘I’m going to buy him a beer. When I’m eighteen.’

  Hannah laughed. ‘I just wanted you to know that it’s not like I usually carry them round with me, or anything.’

  He kissed the top of her head. ‘I couldn’t care less if you did. I hope you’ve got a few more. I hope your brother gave you ten.’

  ‘Ten?’ she protested, raising her face so her breath was warm against his lips. ‘He’s not that generous. Though maybe we should ring him and ask for a home delivery.’

  Dan pressed his mouth against hers and the world, once more, lit up.

  It was the dream that set it off. She was in bed with Nan, who was telling her a story. They were cuddled up close, snug as two bugs in a rug, Nan had said, smiling at her, and though Charlie was the age she was now, her grandmother was well, was completely herself, was back in her own home, in her own bed. She could even smell her, Charlie recalled, the 4711, the scent of recent baking, the lavender rising from the sheets. Charlie had nestled in close under Nan’s arm, her head against her bosom, and had felt the words she was speaking rising from her chest before they even left her mouth. She couldn’t remember the tale Nan was telling her—Bluebeard? The Goose Girl?—but half-way through she had turned to her and whispered, Nan, I’m scared, and Nan had stopped and taken her face in her hands and replied, I know you are, but you have to be brave and it will all be alright.

  It had been so real! She could see her nan’s eyelashes and hear her small bedside clock ticking in the background; she could feel the calluses on her old palm rough against her own cheek. Then Nan had shimmered before her, dissolved, and was gone, leaving Charlie alone in the wide warm bed. That must have been when I woke up, she thought, but even now she was awake she couldn’t bear to open her eyes and leave the dream behind for good, have it evaporate in the stench and frost of the stable. She burrowed down, under her one thin blanket, grasping at it.

  The lock clattered against the door and something fell to the ground outside. Charlie heard the man swear and screwed her eyes up as tightly as she could. She was staying with Nan. She wasn’t coming back. It was a shock, then, when she felt the man prod her with his foot, heard him tell her to get up. She shook her head, the dream giving her courage. He kicked her again, harder this time.

  ‘Get up,’ he repeated. ‘I made you breakfast. Something different. Toast.’

  Toast was a welcome change, but it couldn’t entice her to open her eyes. That was probably what he’d dropped. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I want to sleep.’ She felt him sink to the straw next to her, then he was grabbing her by her shoulders and shaking her furiously. Her eyes flew open. It was dark in the stable, as if the sun hadn’t been able to face rising that morning.

  ‘You’ll do what I say!’ he screamed, the stink of his cigarette breath and unbrushed teeth sharp in her nostrils. She turned her face away.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m sick of doing what you want. Why should I?’

  He grabbed her chin between his thumb and fingers, forcing her to look at him. ‘Because I said so,’ he panted, livid with fury. Charlie gathered all the saliva she could manage behind her teeth, then spat it between his eyes. He shrieked in rage, drew back his hand and hit her across the face. Blood spurted from her nose and something cracked below her mouth, but she barely had time to notice before he was ripping off her blanket and pinioning her arms above her head. She struggled, fully awake now and frightened for the first time since he had come into the stable, but he was stronger than she’d thought and held her down easily. With his free hand he yanked at her jodhpurs, her filthy, tattered jodhpurs, then wrenched at his own pants. Charlie suddenly realised what he was doing and a scream left her lips, colliding with the tin stable roof and echoing between them, but to no av
ail. The man raised his head and butted it sharply against Charlie’s jaw. She bit down hard, teeth colliding with each other, shattering grittily against her tongue, and as she lay there grunting from the blow she felt him prise her legs apart and force himself into her.

  It seemed to go on forever. She thought he would never stop. Push, withdraw, push, withdraw, each thrust shredding skin, inflicting damage. The pain was like an animal devouring her, eating her alive. Oh, Nan, she thought, Oh, Mum. She wanted to die. Tears slid down her face, mingling with the blood from her nose, and when she looked in desperation towards the door she saw Blue there, watching them, his head cocked to one side as if trying to figure out what they were doing.

  As Rachael walked towards the lectern, Matt held his breath. Around him the congregation settled into their seats and made themselves comfortable, anticipating a lengthy eulogy—Ava Menzies had led a full, and in her earlier years, celebrated, life. Rachael had worked for days on her speech, determined to make sure she captured it all, then had been awake most of the night rehearsing. Matt sighed. It had been a hard morning, a hard week. All mornings were hard now, but this one had been particularly bad. Rachael’s fatigue and her tension, her eyes glittering with resolve one moment and with tears the next, the burden of this extra grief, which had seemed to strip an inch from her height. Dan had stayed out of their way, emerging from his bedroom just before they left for the church only to cop a tongue-lashing from Rachael because he wasn’t wearing a tie. Matt didn’t think the poor kid even owned a tie. He’d waited until she’d stormed her way out of the house then quickly fetched Dan one of his own, his son standing like a child as Matt knotted it for him. After that they’d gone to join Rachael in the car—but she was standing stock-still on the empty porch, staring up at the light above their front door.