The Lone Child
Page 21
It was a timber cave with a springy, dank carpet. Down one end was a large basalt rock. Weed was strewn around the rock and part way up its side. Neve crawled into the long, narrow space. It smelt of brine and rotting seagrass. Insects hovered low to the ground but no other living thing was in there. Not even someone small and adept at hiding. Crouched, Neve was heading back towards the opening when she glimpsed something. She stopped. Near the rock, she saw the beige sole of a what? A shoe? She crawled closer.
And that was when she saw her. Near the embankment, curled in a shallow hole in the sand, hidden from view by the rock. She had her knees tucked under and her head turned. Seaweed was strewn in her hair and across her body. But beneath the weed Neve could make out a black piece of fabric wrapped around her shoulders. A slip, like the one missing from Neve’s clothesline. And beneath it, a t-shirt and shorts, those denim shorts. Damp and grubby.
Neve began to shake, as the innocuous was rendered brutal. She blinked back tears to better focus but the image didn’t change. What she saw was real and true: a child in sleeping pose, her back rounded, her body partially covered by seagrass.
Leaning in, she saw the side of Tayla’s face. It was ashy and tranquil. The sand in her eyelashes and on her skin was like a fine fur coat. Neve rested her fingers on Tayla’s cheek. The child was as cold and still as stone.
Bewildered, Neve withdrew. She tried to connect what she could see with what she knew; with what she’d felt. But it was too much. A baffling melange. In a fraction of a second, the pieces of her weekend shifted and reassembled, then reconfigured again: an angry Leah and a wet Tayla on the hill, and Cliff soaked in his sling. Then Leah upset and in need outside her house. And, later in that cold, stormy night, rapping at a window: a child, on her own. And on the balcony, in the rain, her voice, commanding: go away.
Go away!
She moaned. She’d sent her away.
Across the sea, a series of clouds were huge and white, as if exploding from the horizon.
__________
When Leah saw the fallen tree with its sticks, she knew Tayla had been at work. She hadn’t realised how far her girl had wandered. But it was going to be okay. What she didn’t expect to find, at its entrance, was the woman crawling about in tears. The look on the woman’s face was something she’d never forget. It was the saddest, sorriest look she’d ever seen. As if this woman, Neve Ayres, was the cause of all the woes in the world.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.
Oh no.
Leah pushed past as Neve, dazed and useless, hugged her blanket.
__________
Years ago Neve had learnt that death did not discriminate. It struck down decent people. Innocent people. For no particular reason. But over the decades, she’d come to believe her mother’s death was a one-off tragedy. A horror the likes of which she would not see again – not in her inner circle. Not if she lived a good and considered life; if she behaved the right way and dressed the right way; spoke the right way and thought the right way. If she worked conscientiously and excelled. She would not be touched like that again. She’d found it useful to distinguish between those close and far, like and other, deserving and undeserving. As if there were two sets of realities, one fair, one harsh, both justified.
But motherhood and meeting Tayla, she realised, had moved her. Shifted her heart along its peg. She’d thought she was invulnerable to fresh sorrow. That she had fortified herself against it. But it’d crept through and around and in.
In that damp cave, Neve pictured herself tucking Jessie, Tayla, into bed. Shoes on the wrong feet, hands happy. The girl was as real to her then as she was now, pale as smoke. Neve folded herself into the rug of seagrass.
In the months to come, she would sit on her balcony and wonder: had she been visited by the child’s spirit, or had she been mothering her young self? A hybrid Tayla-Neve. And, ultimately, did it matter what she believed? Then and there, as she bent on the weed as if on an altar, the only certainty was her grief.
__________
Out of breath, aghast, Leah leant over her little girl. Tayla was in bad shape. She was curled up like a puppy, on the sand. White and still. Her lips were blue and she was ice-cold. Leah’s eyes filled. After everything, she was too late! Too late!
But then her brain fired. She hadn’t come this far to let her daughter go now. A week ago, she would’ve screamed and sworn – at Tayla, at herself, and at the world. She would’ve collapsed. But not today. She knew a bit about hypothermia – she did! A few of the folks at Willowcrest had had it. And that teenager in the snow, the one she’d read about in the paper. She took the blanket from Neve’s arms.
‘Okay, here we go . . .’
Neve didn’t seem able to speak any more, or even understand, but Leah didn’t care. She wrapped the blanket around Tayla’s back and stroked the sand from her face. The girl didn’t respond but Leah lay down low and held her.
‘Tayla honey, Mummy’s here,’ she whispered. ‘I’m here.’
To Neve, she said, as firmly as she could, ‘We need an ambulance!’
When Neve looked at her, she didn’t seem to get it. Leah said it again and tried to explain, like she was arguing. ‘Some people can last days in the cold . . . Everything shuts down . . .’ But Neve didn’t react and she didn’t have the time or know-how to explain the medical details. How if you’re found cold, you’re not dead until you’ve been warmed up and you’re still dead.
So she said, ‘Now! Quick!’
Neve snapped to life then, like Leah had given her a slap. She crawled out and Leah could hear her shouting.
Leah rested her head on her daughter’s back and listened. Oh, my darling girl. She didn’t dare count the seconds of stillness but she didn’t dare move either. How long she lay like that she couldn’t say. She studied her daughter for other signs of life. She couldn’t find a pulse. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t there . . .
Tayla. Please.
She took off her hoodie and put it over the blanket. After what felt like hours but was probably only a few long, long seconds, she felt the tiniest, most beautiful sensation. Like the flap of a pair wings.
‘She took a breath!’ she said. ‘She took a breath!’
Neve poked her head into the cave. Her eyes were popping, her face seemed huge, as though she’d been inflated.
Leah laughed and her chest collapsed with a sob. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you!’ she cried.
All was forgiven.
__________
Kneeling beside Leah Chalmers, Neve could see her properly. Up so close, she looked scarcely eighteen, dwarfed in faded grey tracksuit pants and a pale pink t-shirt. Up so close, Neve could see traces of Tayla in her: in the fine bones, jumbled teeth and flaring, hazel-flecked eyes.
‘She’s going to be okay,’ said Leah. ‘I know it.’
Neve could only nod. Leah’s faith was, for Neve, another gift and she clung to it.
Neve took off her coat and draped it around Leah’s shoulders. Then she crawled to the entrance of the cave and waved to Sal, and another woman who resembled Leah, and a handful of police running towards them. A moment later, she returned to clasp Leah’s hand; together, they wept warm tears until they heard the approach of voices.
Neve didn’t understand the mechanics of what was happening. How a child, lost for three days, could return. But she knew what she felt: immense relief and gratitude, too, for her life, her son, and for this family, this beloved little girl who was Tayla, and her mother.
Together, she and Leah watched for the child’s next breath.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to my small band of early readers: Clare Kennedy and Aoife Clifford, Jane Cockram and Sally Hepworth. I am also very grateful to Anne Buist, who read the manuscript wearing both her psychiatry and writing hats; and to Nicola O’Shea for her wonderful editorial feedback. Also, for generously sharing their expertise and time with me, thanks to Cam Freeden, Ray Mooney, Alison Binks and Sergeant D
avid Spencer. Thanks too to my tireless agent Tara Wynne and to my editor Cate Blake for her astute advice and infinite patience.
And, finally, to my family, Jason, Jem and Lachie, you are each a constant source of support, encouragement and inspiration – thank you.
About the Author
Anna George has worked in the legal world as well as the film and television industries. Her first novel, What Came Before, was shortlisted for the 2015 Ned Kelly and Sisters in Crime Best Debut Fiction awards, and was longlisted for the 2016 International Dublin Literary Award. She lives in Melbourne with her husband and two children.
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First published by Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd, 2017
Text copyright © Anna George, 2017
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All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Cover design by Alex Ross © Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Cover photograph by Getty Images / Robert Benson
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ISBN: 978-1-74348-279-7
THE BEGINNING
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