Last Bridge Before Home

by Lily Malone

  She leaned into the door. ‘Jaz, how would you like to go on a holiday?’

  There was a clatter of plastic, and the frantic rumble of a hundred tiny pieces of Jaz’s farm figures tipping and spreading over the tiles.

  ‘I’m a good girl. I’m a good girl!’

  ‘I know you’re a good girl, Jazzy.’ Jaydah’s heart broke. ‘We’re going to a real farm, Jaz. We’re going to visit a real farm where they have real chickens and pens and stables and sheep. There are paddocks and hills and trees. It’s so pretty. Please, Jazzy, can you open the door?’

  She laid her ear against the cool surface.

  ‘Jazzy? Please, will you open the door? I don’t know where your Snap cards are? Where are your cards, Jaz? We can’t go on a holiday without Snap.’

  There was the slightest metallic scratch, and Jaz’s eyes appeared as the door slid open a crack.

  ‘What do you want Snap for?’

  ‘So I can play it with you when we’re on holiday,’ Jaydah said.

  Jaz’s face disappeared. Jaydah put her hand in the crack and gently pushed the door wider.

  ‘I don’t want to get taken away by the police, it’s not fair,’ Jaz said, sitting on the floor—an island in a sea of plastic farm animals. ‘I haven’t been lazy like Mum.’

  ‘No one’s taking you away, Jaz. No one is taking Mum away either. You’re both coming with me. We’re going on a Christmas holiday.’

  ‘Not Daddy?’

  ‘Not Daddy. Not this time.’

  ‘Who’s the bad man stealing our things?’

  ‘He’s not stealing our things. He’s not a bad man.’

  ‘Daddy says he is. Daddy is shouting.’ Jaz started rocking, holding her stomach.

  Jaydah stepped into the laundry and knelt on the floor beside her sister. Jaz was dressed in her Christmas outfit: orange shorts and a loose flowing shirt covered in tiny candy canes, and big orange tassles on triangular ear-rings.

  ‘He’s not stealing our things. He’s packing them for our holiday. His name’s Brix. I married him.’

  ‘You’re not married. You have to kiss someone to get married, like they do on Home and Away.’

  ‘I have kissed him, Jaz,’ she said.

  Her eyes went wide and she giggled. ‘You kissed him?’

  Jaydah nodded. ‘I got married this morning.’ She held out her hand where the white-gold and blue opal on her ring gleamed. ‘That’s where I’ve been this morning. The lady who married us flew in on a plane. See? Here’s my ring.’

  Jaz took a look. ‘It’s not very sparkling.’

  ‘I guess it’s not sparkling, but the blue is pretty, don’t you think?’

  ‘Can a ring be orange?’

  Jaydah snorted a laugh. ‘I’m not sure if there are orange jewels. I can’t think of one off the top of my head.’

  ‘There’s no jewel on the top of your head, Jaydah. Okay. Can I kiss a boy and get married and if I go to the shops and they have an orange ring, can I buy it?’

  ‘You can buy it. I hope you find a boy you want to kiss one day, Jaz. Can we pack up your farm pieces first, please though? Do you want to bring them with us on our holiday?’

  ‘To the real farm?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘What if I lose them?’

  ‘You won’t lose them. You’re always super careful with your farm animals.’

  ‘Maybe I should leave them here for when we come back.’

  Jaydah didn’t know how to broach that so she didn’t try. ‘The horses might miss you. What if you want to play with them later?’

  Slowly, Jaz picked up a cow and a calf. She stretched across to the blue container—the one for animals—and threw the piece in. Jaydah picked up a sheep and went to put it in the same container but Jaz moved the container and her throw missed, skittering away.

  ‘We do the cows first,’ Jaz stated.

  ‘Sorry.’

  Jaydah picked up all the cows she could find and put them in the container.

  ‘Now you can do sheep,’ Jaz said.

  Quietly, bar the peppering of plastic on plastic, they collected the pieces.

  Then Jaydah sensed vibrations on the floor and she pushed herself up to her feet. Brix waited a few metres beyond the laundry door.

  ‘That’s all done,’ he said quietly. ‘I put the bags in the car.’

  ‘Thank you. Where’s my dad?’

  Brix jerked his chin. ‘Still outside. Lynne and the cops are with him. I’ll wait outside for you.’

  Jaydah nodded, but then she thought of something. ‘Jazzy?’

  Jaz’s face peered around the corner of the door.

  ‘Jaz, would you like to meet my very handsome husband? He’s my prince.’

  Brix huffed beneath his breath.

  ‘I’d like to see,’ Jaz said, giggling before covering her mouth with her hand.

  Jaydah moved back to give Brix some room. ‘Brix, come and meet my beautiful sister. She’s my princess.’

  * * *

  What did he say at a time like this? What did he do?

  If he’d had some warning he could have Googled it. Like when Jaydah first told him her father was violent and she’d shown him her whipped back, and then she said he hit her mum too, and he said all the wrong things because he just had no damn idea what the right thing was to say or do.

  He still had no damn idea what the right thing was to say or do. How was he supposed to talk to Jasmine?

  ‘Hi,’ he said, and he held out his hand. The beast outside the laundry growled a long, low, vibrating growl. Damn but the dog sounded big. Much bigger than Jake’s dog, Jess.

  Jaydah’s twin sister stared at his outstretched hand. Not quite as if it might bite like that dog, but like she wasn’t sure what to do with it. Maybe she wasn’t.

  ‘You can shake his hand, Jaz, if you want to,’ Jaydah said.

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  Jasmine’s voice was patchy and petulant, like a … child’s.

  Brix put his hand back at his hip.

  Abe would know what to do. Abe would say something funny and he’d make Jasmine laugh. Abe could probably duck into that kitchen and bake her favourite cookie or a scone and break the ice. Instead, Brix got stuck like a huge buffoon, taking up the space in the doorway, looming into the laundry, saying nothing.

  ‘I heard you’re really good at Snap,’ he said.

  ‘Daddy says I’m the house champion.’

  ‘Jaz is the queen of Snap,’ Jaydah added.

  ‘I heard you say we need to make sure we pack the cards.’ Brix reached into his pocket. ‘I found these in the kitchen. Are these the ones?’

  Jasmine’s gaze lingered hungrily on the pack in his hand and she took them from him.

  Her hands were blockier than Jaydah’s. The skin rough. They reminded him of his own hands during vintage, when his skin would stain with red wine and it felt like he’d never get the colour out from under his nails.

  The disability services coordinator’s voice called through the house. ‘Jaydah? Is everything alright?’

  ‘We’re back here, Lynne.’

  ‘Your mum isn’t doing so well and your dad’s being an arsehole. I think we should go.’

  ‘Okay.’ Jaydah bent and picked up two of the containers of farm pieces and handed them to Brix, then a third. ‘Come on, Jaz.’

  ‘Are we going to the real farm now?’

  ‘Yes. It’s not far. We’ll go for a ride in the car.’

  Brix would never know what made him think of it, but he said it anyway. ‘We might see Santa. I thought I heard sleigh bells outside before.’

  Jaz paused. ‘Really? I couldn’t hear anything. Hammer barked too loud.’ Then she pushed past them both and ran ahead.

  Jaydah touched his arm. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and she picked up the last two plastic containers and they left the laundry together.

  Already the house felt small and abandoned. Like a shell when the sea creature’s decided it’s
time to move on because the walls got too small.

  Maybe it had always been like that.

  * * *

  The monster’s shouts and screams started afresh—the barbs mostly directed at Rosalie—and by the time she and Brix reached the front door her dad had worked himself into another rage.

  One of the police officers threatened him with something she couldn’t hear.

  ‘I love you, Jazzy. Daddy loves you. Don’t you listen to them! Don’t you let them make you do anything you don’t want to do, Jazzy. You hear me? Do you want to stay here with me? You tell them if you want to stay here with me. They can’t take you.’

  ‘Actually, they can, Mr Tully,’ the younger police officer said as the men made a blockade of two between them and her dad, ‘and you need to calm down.’

  Jasmine had been standing with Rosalie and Lynne, but when her father called at her she tried to pull out of the local coordinator’s hands. Lynne wasn’t a big woman and Jaz was strong from years and years of shovelling rocks.

  Her mum was in tears. Shaking like a leaf.

  ‘My niece got a pony for Christmas, Jaz,’ Brix said suddenly, conversationally, as if he’d been talking about having toast for breakfast.

  ‘Is her name Tara?’

  ‘Her name’s Charlotte.’

  ‘Oh.’ Jaz was disappointed. ‘When I have a horse I want to call her Tara. If I had a sheep I’d call him Lamby.’

  ‘Oh, you meant what’s the pony’s name? I’m sorry, Jaz, I thought you meant my niece! My niece’s name is Charlotte. The pony’s name is Starburst.’

  ‘Is he white like the stars?’ Jasmine asked.

  ‘Don’t you listen to them, Jazzy,’ her father screamed. ‘Don’t you talk to him.’ Then to Brix, ‘Don’t you talk to her!’

  Brix didn’t even blink, just kept talking to Jasmine as he walked slowly towards the cars. ‘No. He is black. He has a white patch on his nose. Show me your hands, Jaz?’

  Jasmine lifted her hands and took a step after Brix, then another. She held her hands out.

  ‘The patch is almost the size of your hand, and it goes right across’—he moved his own hands across his face and throat—‘here.’

  They were almost at the cars.

  ‘Rosalie! Rosalie, don’t you do this! Rosalie, ifyoudothis—’

  When Jaydah checked over her shoulder, the sandy-haired police officer had the handcuffs out of his belt, holding them ready in one hand.

  ‘What’s the policeman doing to Daddy?’ Jaz said.

  ‘They might be going down to check the fences I think,’ Jaydah said. ‘Jump in. You hop in the front, Mum. You’re in the back, Jaz.’ She turned to the local coordinator, wavered, exhausted, and then she pulled the slighter woman into a fierce hug and felt an inexplicable warmth flood her heart. ‘Lynne, I can’t thank you enough. I really can’t. I should have called you ages ago. Years ago.’

  ‘You should have,’ Lynne nodded briskly, holding Jaydah’s shoulders. ‘I could have helped.’

  ‘I thought it would make things worse.’

  ‘One thing I’ve learned in this business. You’re already at worse. Arseholes are arseholes from the very beginning: that moment they hit you or hurt you or intimidate you or someone you love into doing what they want. It’s already bad enough. Right at the beginning it’s bad enough. Arseholes are like bank debts. They never get any smaller. They never go away. You gotta send them packing yourself.’

  Jaydah had no answer.

  ‘I’ll call you soon and make sure everything’s okay. I’ll let you settle in but I’ll call soon. And I’ll speak with my colleagues in Bunbury to come check up on you. Okay?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘This scene today, the stress of moving, it’s bound to knock Jasmine about. Not many of our clients like a change in their routine. She might be anxious. She might be irritable or wary. She might blame herself that she’s not with her dad, okay? She might have trouble sleeping. If she does, the doctors can prescribe things that can help her sleep. She might wet the bed even if it’s years since she’s done it. She might not want to eat.’

  ‘That will be the day I worry,’ Jaydah said.

  ‘I figure that it’s better I tell you and at least you’re prepared.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jaydah said again.

  Her face ached from trying to smile around the sour taste in her heart. Her head ached from the tension that had been building for twenty-seven years and all day. All she wanted to do was get the hell out, but as she settled in the driver’s seat of the Subaru and closed the window on her father’s rage, the hill behind the house was the final thing she saw.

  Goodbye, quarry.

  Goodbye, wild wind.

  I’m going to a better place.

  * * *

  Jaydah followed Brix’s ute—indicated when he indicated, braked when he braked—and didn’t look at the monster again. She shut down everything else so she could concentrate on driving her family out.

  Her mum sat silent in the passenger seat. Jaz sniffed and cried in the back and when Brix parked near a huge caravan at the front of the Honeychurch farmhouse she’d heard about for years but never been inside, Jaydah pulled off before the main driveway and just drank in all of the luxury spread around her: summer-browned rolling paddocks tinged green near the dam and creek, neat gardens, welcoming house, well-maintained fences, the shining dam.

  Not a rock pile in sight.

  No cardboard covering the windows.

  She couldn’t really explain why she didn’t follow Brix all the way down, beyond that it didn’t feel right. She felt like she was intruding, like they didn’t belong. She switched off the ignition and sat for a moment in a silence that seemed as stunned by the morning’s events as she did.

  Jaz had her forehead on the window, hiccupping as she stared out. Her mum sat with both hands clawed into the passenger seat.

  ‘Are you okay, Mum?’

  ‘When I see the police, I think they’d come to take me away,’ her mum said softly. ‘I think because I didn’t make the Christmas bibingka, he calls them and they would take me back to Manila.’ The last word came out shattered and scared, and her mum started to cry.

  Jaydah undid her seatbelt and leaned across to embrace her mum. ‘You’re safe now. We’re away from him. He can’t hurt you again. He can’t hurt me, or Jaz.’ How many times would she have to say it before her mum could believe it?

  Jaz didn’t lift her head from the window. Below in the carpark, Brix got out of his car and began walking up the driveway back to them.

  Jaydah opened her car door and waved at him.

  There was a mechanical-sounding groan from the other side of the car as her mum pushed the passenger door open and got out on shaky legs.

  In the paddock, a sturdy black pony bee-lined for the fence as if he thought Brix might have a treat, and kept pace with Brix as the pair walked steadily up the hill. He was a sweet little thing, and Brix was right: the white patch across his forehead was shaped like a patting hand.

  ‘Jaz, can you see the horse?’ Jaydah called to her sister, still in the car.

  Brix reached them before the pony did. He put his arm around her shoulders, pressing a kiss into her hair.

  ‘I’m Brix Honeychurch, Mrs Tully,’ he held out his hand. ‘It’s really good to meet you, after all these years. I love your daughter. I’ll take good care of her.’

  Jaydah’s mum extended her hand and Brix took it.

  The pony watched it all, tossing his head at them.

  There was another creak and groan from the car and the rear door opened. Jaz stood there, hiding behind the open door and not looking at them. Her eyes were on the black pony and her mouth was wide open. Jaydah thought she might cry or scream, until she realised Jaz was laughing, before Jaz covered her mouth with her hand.

  * * *

  If it hadn’t been for his mum’s illness and the thought that this might be their last Christmas with her as a family, Brix wou
ld have suggested that maybe they should just hitch up the caravan and go home.

  Thank God for Charlotte’s pony. That pony had saved them. It even stood still and let Jasmine pat its dusty coat—it must have just rolled—and the look on her face had almost made the entire crazy scene out at the Tully farm worth it.

  He really wasn’t sure what to think. In the course of a morning he’d got married, helped bust a family out of domestic abuse and discovered the love of his life had a mentally impaired twin sister no soul in Chalk Hill knew about.

  How was it possible that in this day and age Keith Tully could keep his wife and an adult daughter with a disability as, well … calling a spade a damn bloody shovel, slave labour?

  How did that happen in a town like Chalk Hill?

  He thought he knew the answer. People were so worried about being polite. About not putting their nose in their neighbour’s business … no one pressed a point. No one wanted to offend, so they said nothing. Eventually, they even forgot to watch anymore because if they didn’t watch, they wouldn’t see, and everything could go on just the way it was.

  He led his band of Tully women down to the bottom of the driveway and then up the steps to the farmhouse.

  Jake’s dog, Jess, rushed at them, sniffing at their legs, making Jasmine cringe and hide behind JT.

  ‘She won’t hurt you, Jasmine. This is my brother’s dog, Jess.’

  ‘I don’t like the dog,’ Jaz said.

  ‘She’s not like Hammer. She’s a nice dog. She’s a good dog. She works on the farm,’ Jaydah said.

  ‘I don’t like the dog. I want to go home.’

  ‘Out of it, Jess.’ Brix ordered the dog down and Jess slunk away.

  The sounds of Christmas rose and fell the nearer they got to the top of the stairs. Bon-bons exploding. Kids squealing with laughter. People talking all at once.

  Again he turned to suggest to Jaydah that they should hitch up the caravan and go home, but then all he saw was her barefoot in his mum’s wedding dress, all deep brown eyes, black hair and a face that refused to quit, and he thought well why would I be the one to quit on her?

  He waited for his new family to get up to the top of the stairs.

  ‘So, Rosalie, Jasmine … my family are all having Christmas lunch here today. There’s quite a few people all having lunch, okay? They’re good people but they are pretty noisy.’ He glanced at Jaydah and she nodded. ‘If anything gets too much, just let Jaydah or me know, okay? But they’re not scary. I promise. There are two younger kids, Jaz. Sam and Charlotte are their names. Starburst is Charlotte’s pony. She got him for Christmas. She loves horses too.’