The Way Back

by Kylie Ladd

  Charlie bent over it immediately, her newly exposed neck white and vulnerable. Rachael winced. God, how long would it take that hair to grow back? It shouldn’t matter, but she hated how Charlie looked at present, as if she’d just been liberated from Auschwitz. Maybe that was the point.

  ‘A guinea pig! Oh, Mum!!’

  Charlie lifted the squirming toffee-coloured bundle from the hutch, her eyes alight.

  ‘Keep looking,’ Rachael said. Charlie didn’t need to be told twice.

  ‘Two guinea pigs!’ she exclaimed a moment later, adding a white ball of fluff to the first. ‘Are there any more?’

  Rachael laughed. ‘Two’s enough. And they’re both boys, before you ask, so hopefully two is all we’ll have.’

  ‘Oh, Mum, I love them,’ Charlie said, lowering her face between their bodies. ‘What are their names?’

  ‘They don’t have any yet,’ Matt said. ‘We thought you’d want to choose.’ He gently eased the white guinea pig from Charlie’s grasp and held it up appraisingly. ‘What about Snowball for this one?’

  ‘Dad, that’s a terrible name! So unoriginal,’ Charlie laughed. Rachael felt tears spring to her eyes watching her, her face radiant. All those years that she’d banned pets. Why, when they brought so much happiness? But then happiness had never previously been in such short supply.

  ‘They’re very wriggly, aren’t they?’ Matt said, struggling to contain the white guinea pig. ‘Maybe just hold one at once, and keep the other one in the hutch. We’ll never get them back if they escape. When the weather’s a bit warmer I’ll build them a run, so you can put them out on the grass.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad,’ Charlie said, kissing his cheek. ‘And thank you too, Mum. I love them.’ She threw one arm around Rachael, the other clasping the tan guinea pig to her chest. Rachael hugged her back, grateful for the contact.

  ‘Just make sure you keep Blue away from them,’ she cautioned Charlie, though they’d already agreed that the dog wasn’t allowed in the backyard on account of the chickens. ‘And they are not to come inside, OK? If I find one in my bed I’m returning them to the pet shop.’

  ‘Of course, Mum,’ Charlie vowed, all blue-eyed innocence. ‘As if I’d do that.’

  Rachael found herself humming as she cooked dinner later that evening. It was an unfamiliar sensation. She liked it. Charlie had been home two weeks today, and things had been tough but surely they were beginning to turn the corner? She’d spent the entire afternoon on the lawn with her guinea pigs, coming back inside only briefly to announce to Matt and Rachael that her new pets were to be called Skittles and Aura and to feed Blue some treats and apologise for neglecting him. Rachael had even overheard her promising the dog that maybe once Dan was home from school they would take him for a walk. A walk! Charlie still hadn’t left the house under her own volition, so this was progress. Rachael had sent Matt straight back to the pet shop to pick up a collar and a leash.

  ‘That was a good idea, those piggies,’ he’d remarked on his return, placing the items on the island bench. ‘Well done, you.’ The unexpected approbation made her blush. They hadn’t exchanged a lot of compliments lately, she and Matt, but maybe that was changing too. She took a deep breath.

  ‘Thanks. But I sort of felt I had to.’

  ‘Had to?’ he asked.

  ‘After making her see the psychiatrist. They’re a guilt offering.’

  She sliced the tops off the carrots, carefully keeping her eyes averted from Matt’s in case some flicker of sympathy reduced her to tears. She’d done enough crying today. She’d told Matt a little of what had happened at the psychiatrist’s, but he hadn’t been there and she couldn’t bear to go through it all again. Rachael reached for the celery, but saw that her hand was trembling and put the knife down. It had been the right thing to do! Of course it had, everyone said so—Terry, the websites she’d consulted, the paediatric psychiatrist herself. Charlie had been through an enormous trauma; ergo, she would need professional help to recover from it, assistance far beyond anything Matt or Rachael could provide. Terry had spoken to someone in the know and furnished her with a number; when Rachael had called the specialist’s rooms they’d been expecting her and had already made an appointment for Charlie. Charlie hadn’t wanted to go, of course. Rachael had had to practically drag her to the car, then once they’d parked behind the clinic, a restored Georgian mansion, Charlie had refused to unbuckle her seatbelt and kicked out at her when Rachael tried to undo it herself. She should have just driven away there and then, but instead she’d called reception and told them what was happening. This was for Charlie. It was going to make her better! Rachael had thought that the receptionist might direct the psychiatrist out to meet Charlie in the car park, to win her over and lead her inside. Instead, they sent security, a thick-necked youth who simply scooped Charlie out of her seat like an oyster from its shell. Then, when he set her down in Dr Flanagan’s office and Rachael had turned to go … Rachael gripped the bench as the diced carrots swam before her. The look in Charlie’s eyes, begging her not to abandon her. The panic. The hatred.

  ‘Hey,’ Matt said, suddenly beside her, his arms around her. ‘Are you OK?’

  She leaned against him, inhaling his scent. How long was it since they’d been this close?

  ‘I think she hates me,’ she admitted.

  ‘Charlie? Don’t be silly! Why would you think that? You gave her the guinea pigs, and look what a hit they’ve been.’

  Rachael gently disentangled herself from Matt’s embrace. He didn’t get it. He hadn’t been there. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go help her put the collar on Blue?’

  Rachael picked up her knife. She was being silly. Charlie didn’t hate her. She had just been scared; she was still adjusting after all she’d been through. And Rachael was supposed to leave her alone with the psychiatrist, that was the point, so that she could talk freely without watching for or being influenced by her mother’s reactions. If Charlie had wanted to confide in Rachael, surely she would have by now. She hadn’t, and that hurt, but that was why Rachael had made this appointment, to give Charlie someone she could unburden herself to. She retrieved the celery, slicing into it with more force than was strictly necessary. But Charlie still hadn’t talked. The psychiatrist had told her as much when she called Rachael into her office to debrief while Charlie sulked in the waiting room.

  According to Dr Flanagan, Charlie had pursed her lips and refused to open them for the whole of the session. ‘The literature tells us that kidnap victims experience a variety of symptoms in the weeks or months after they are freed,’ she said, hands clasped in front of her. ‘Anxiety, depression, guilt, sleep disturbance, headaches or stomach upsets. Many will act out, becoming angry or upset, but others will internalise their distress, lock it away as Charlie is doing.’

  ‘So how do we reach her?’ Rachael asked, wondering exactly how many kidnap victims this woman had seen to become such an expert. This was Melbourne, not Mexico.

  Dr Flanagan’s hands came apart, one floating to the pearls at her neck. ‘It can take time. We might just need to wait.’ She hesitated. ‘I believe some practitioners have had good results with art therapy, however.’

  Rachael raised the chopping board and swept the celery and carrots into the waiting pot. Art therapy! For fuck’s sake. Two hundred and fifty dollars to be advised to buy Charlie some paints. The guinea pigs had been a better investment.

  She thought of them again as she was cleaning up after dinner. It looked cold outside. Rachael hoped they were snug in their hutch, that Matt had given them enough straw. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, but maybe she’d just pop out quickly to check. She could take the carrot tops that she’d set aside for them earlier, so they had something to eat overnight. When she reached the hutch at the edge of the garden, however, torch grasped in her hand, she found that it was empty.

  ‘Charlie!’ she yelled out. She’d better not have taken them into the house. Rachael wouldn’t put i
t past her, though—look how she’d been with Blue. When Charlie failed to appear Rachael stormed inside, determined to catch her red-handed. Skittles and Aura had seemed like a good idea, but there’d be hell to pay if Rachael caught them pissing on her carpet.

  Rachael found her in the bathroom, filling the tub. She took a lot of baths for someone who had spent every day until now inside. ‘The guinea pigs—they weren’t in their hutch.’

  She had expected Charlie to panic or blush, but instead she simply glanced at Rachael then bent down to switch off the taps.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ Rachael asked, stepping closer to her. ‘Skittles and Aura—I took them out something to eat, but they weren’t there.’

  ‘I let them go.’ Charlie didn’t look up.

  ‘What?’ Rachael cried.

  ‘I told you. I let them go.’

  Rachael couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘But you loved them! You were having so much fun with them! And now what’s going to happen to them? It’s too cold for them to be out in the garden. They’ll freeze to death, or something will get them, a cat or a fox. They’ll be killed. They’ll be eaten. Is that what you want, for Skittles and Aura to be eaten?’ She knew she was going too far, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

  Charlie burst into tears. ‘I don’t want them to be eaten! It was just that when you called me for dinner and I put them in their hutch they looked so sad. They looked trapped, like they wanted to be back out on the lawn.’ Her shoulders heaved. ‘I couldn’t shut the door on them, Mum! I couldn’t. Then they’d be prisoners, in the dark. Like me. Like me!’ Charlie sank to the floor sobbing, curling herself into a ball.

  ‘Matt!’ Rachael cried, immediately dropping to her knees beside her. ‘Matt!’

  Dan closed the door and opened his guitar case. How long had it been? Ages, weeks and weeks. He’d barely touched it while Charlie was missing. He’d been busy with all the searching, but it was more than that. He hadn’t had the heart—or the focus. The few times he had touched it his mind had wandered off before he’d even picked his way through the first song, and he’d ended up putting it aside and lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling instead. Tonight, though, he felt different. The urge to play had come over him during dinner and he’d escaped to his bedroom as soon as he could. Maybe it was because things had finally felt a bit more normal? His father had gone back to work that week and had just left for a night shift; Charlie had made it through a whole meal without bursting into tears and having to leave the table. True, she still hadn’t said much, but she’d managed to finish a chicken breast without it hurting her jaw and had declared it a welcome change from pasta.

  He cradled the instrument on his lap and strummed it slightly, then winced. It was out of tune. Hardly surprising, but he’d soon fix that. He’d like to play it for Hannah, he thought, when he’d practised a bit and was back in form. Did she play any instruments herself? And what sort of music was she into? He’d have to find out. There was so much still to learn about her, no matter how often they spoke on the phone or sat talking at his house or hers, never running out of things to say. Dan smiled to himself as he adjusted the last tuning peg, then launched into ‘Wonderwall’. Everyone liked Oasis, didn’t they? They should.

  His door creaked open and Charlie slipped into the room, shadowed by Blue.

  ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Can I come in for a bit?’

  ‘Sure,’ he replied, masking his surprise. Since her return, Charlie usually went straight to bed after dinner, or sat on the couch watching endless episodes of Glee, Blue practically in her lap.

  Outside, his mother’s car reversed down the driveway, then accelerated away.

  ‘She’s gone to Coles,’ Charlie said.

  Dan nodded. His mum had started doing that, shopping late at night when she was less likely to be hassled by the few remaining reporters, but never before when his dad was also out. ‘She won’t be long.’

  ‘I don’t care.’ Charlie flopped onto the end of Dan’s bed, Blue jumping up beside her without even a glance in Dan’s direction. ‘It’s good.’ She sighed and stroked Blue’s head. The dog closed his eyes in bliss. After a moment she said, ‘She’s always watching me, have you noticed? Everything I do. I can’t even go to the toilet without her hovering around outside or casually asking if I’m OK when I come back out.’

  Dan laughed. He had noticed. He could understand it, though. ‘She’s just worried about you. Plus she probably wants to make sure that you haven’t disappeared again.’ And you seek her out too, he nearly added, but didn’t. It had been more than three weeks now, but night after night, Charlie still slept in their parents’ bed, his father relegated to her room.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ she said, and fell silent. Dan resumed playing.

  ‘Do you know any Taylor Swift?’ Charlie asked when he had finished the song.

  Dan pulled a face. ‘Not really my style.’

  ‘You should learn some. It will get you the girls.’ She smiled. ‘Though I guess that’s not an issue at the moment, huh?’

  Dan felt himself blush, though he couldn’t help smiling too.

  ‘Hannah’s cool,’ Charlie added. ‘I like her.’

  ‘She said to me that you should come back to pony club. She’d be there, obviously.’

  Charlie’s expression changed immediately, her face closing in on itself. ‘Not gonna happen.’

  Dan thought about arguing with her for all the reasons that Hannah had told him, then dismissed the idea. Would he want to go? ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘Any requests?’

  Charlie thought for a while, then rolled onto her side and laid her head on Blue’s stomach.

  ‘I don’t know. I feel like I’ve missed so much. What’s in at the moment?’

  Dan snorted. ‘You’re asking the wrong person.’

  That brought some light back to Charlie’s eyes. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Silly me.’ Another long pause. ‘Britta would know. I should check with her.’

  ‘You saw her the other day, didn’t you?’ Dan asked carefully. Britta had visited the morning after the guinea pig incident. Charlie had been subdued and shaky, still recovering from her meltdown the night before and barely wanting, or able, to chat. It was no wonder they hadn’t got around to discussing who was storming the charts.

  ‘Uh huh.’ Charlie nodded, her eyes closed, but didn’t say anymore. Dan mucked around for a bit, trying out various tunes, then suddenly had an inspiration. Coldplay. His dad was nuts about them, always had some old CD or another of theirs on in the car. It drove Charlie and Dan mad, though when Dan was first learning the guitar he had spent months mastering ‘Clocks’, going over and over that complicated intro just to see his father’s eyes light up when Dan started to play. He launched into it now, fingers tentative at first, then surer.

  ‘That’s nice,’ Charlie murmured. Blue thumped his tail. Dan played it through to the end then began again, mouthing the lyrics under his breath. He had no idea what Charlie had been through, but unlike his mother he wasn’t sure that he wanted to know. Such knowledge could only wound, and there was no point now, anyway. It was enough—it was more than enough—to have her here in his room, whole and breathing, her still-bony body curled around a scruffy cattle dog.

  ‘I’ll see her next week at school, though,’ Charlie said, as if it hadn’t been twenty minutes since she had last spoken.

  ‘Britta?’ Dan asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So it’s definitely happening?’

  ‘Mum and Dad said it was time. They’re probably right.’ She yawned and stretched. ‘And I have to admit that Glee was getting a bit repetitive.’

  Dan laughed. ‘Damn.’

  ‘Damn?’ she said, puzzled.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve been playing the Charlie card for the last few months—you know, to get out of homework or the athletics carnival or whatever, but that’s not going to work anymore once you’re back.’

  Charlie sat up, grabbed his pillow, and hit him wit
h it.

  ‘Good! You slacker.’ She lay back down. ‘Though hopefully I’ll be able to play the Charlie card.’

  ‘I reckon you’re good until at least Year Ten.’

  The front door opened and closed. There was a rustle of plastic bags and their mother’s footsteps echoed along the hallway. Dan found he was holding his breath, willing her not to come in. He exhaled once she’d passed.

  ‘Seriously, though,’ he asked, ‘will you be OK?’

  ‘I s’pose.’ Charlie said. ‘I’ve been through worse.’

  Calm, Rachael told herself. Stay calm. It’s no big deal. It’s just the regular school run. Only there was no regular school run—Charlie always walked to school, Rachael often having left the house for work hours before her kids were even awake, and thus the very fact that they were travelling there together in the car had already rendered the event as out of the ordinary. Maybe they should have walked instead, Rachael wondered, hating herself for her own indecision. She had already been over all this with Matt. The school was seven blocks away and though it was now four weeks since she’d returned home, Charlie still fatigued easily, wasn’t yet back to full health. Besides, those seven long blocks would offer ample opportunity for long stares and furtive glances, for nudges and second looks. Maybe, Rachael told herself, she was being too pessimistic. Maybe no one would notice, never mind care—but what if they did? How would Charlie cope? It was easier just to drive her there.

  She snuck a quick look at her daughter, sitting beside her in the passenger seat with her bag on her lap, and felt her heart contract. Her pinched, pallid face; the gaunt, scrawny look of her. She was wearing a beanie over what was left of her hair, which gave her the appearance of a cancer victim, and was Rachael imagining it, or was she missing half her eyelashes? Tikka, she suddenly thought. That was what Charlie looked like. They had the same anxious, agitated eyes. The chicken had gone broody over the past week and had to be forcibly removed from the nesting box each morning so she didn’t sit there all day without eating or drinking. Once extracted, however, she refused to join Kiev and Parma scratching around in the garden and spent the hours until dusk hunkered down outside the now-locked coop instead, crooning to be let back in. It was driving Rachael nuts. Matt, though, had done some research online and told her that they had to ignore it, they had to persevere, or she’d stay broody forever. It was the same with Charlie, Rachael supposed, pulling into one of the parking bays outside the school. Rachael didn’t want to send her back, wasn’t ready to let her go, but there was no alternative. Things had to get back to normal.