by Lily Malone
But then, right beside her ear, there was a loud pop, and a little girl screamed, ‘youpoppedmyballoon!’
The kid on the paddleboard wobbled, and the board teetered.
The scrapbook slipped, jolted, and the boy pinwheeled his arms. Jaz’s scrapbook slid, slid, slid ...
* * *
Brix tried to get his hand on the thick shiny cover. If the kid hadn’t lost his balance he would have made it, but the kid jumped, the board tipped, and the scrapbook started slow then sped up. It followed the kid into the water.
‘Shit,’ he breathed, watching it bob as the pages took the weight of the water like a sponge.
‘Damn it, Harry. You just lost your screen privileges for a month!’ the guy behind him yelled as the boy’s grinning face popped above the surface.
Brix pushed up off his knees.
He heard a roar from behind him, like a wild boar cornered. By the time he turned, Jaz already had her hands on the back of the guy who’d been yelling about Harry’s screen privileges.
Brix had to admit, he took some satisfaction from the way the guy’s arms cartwheeled as the water rose up and his body fell, fell, fell and went splat.
He also took satisfaction as Jaz shoved a second of the teenagers into Pickles’s lake. The third boy took one look at his drenched mate and the boy’s drenched and fuming father, and legged it.
* * *
Nobody blamed Jaz for doing what she did, not even the father of the boy in the water. Not even when his latest iPhone, tucked safely in his pocket, got soaked.
‘You’ll be buying me a new phone with your own money,’ he said, glaring at his son as the three of them hauled themselves out of the water. Roughly, he yanked at his boy’s shirt, making him spin. ‘You apologise to this lady right now.’
‘Sorry.’ The kid dripped water to the deck.
‘Say it like you mean it. Look at her when you say it!’
The boy changed his tune fast. ‘I’m really sorry.’
But Jaz had gone. She’d run up the hill crying, screaming, and none of them could make her listen or calm her down. Not Jaydah running behind her. Not Rosalie.
‘Do you want him to dive down and find the thing if he can?’ the kid’s father asked.
Brix shook his head. ‘Nah. It’s not worth it. Don’t want him to run into any trouble down there, you can’t see the bottom.’
‘Jesus Christ, Harry, what a shit thing to do. What single bit of you ever thought that was a smart thing to do?’
‘I didn’t know she was retarded!’ the kid said.
Brix picked the kid up by his shirt so that his skinny legs kicked water in a droplet arc and threw him back in the lake.
‘Hey, steady on there—’ the dad said, then he took one look at Brix’s face and shut up, and when the kid’s head popped out of the lake his smug grin was gone.
‘Retard isn’t the word I’d suggest he use, mate,’ Brix said quietly to the kid’s dad. ‘You know, if this situation where your son decides to bully someone with a disability ever happens again.’
He turned away from the scene at the deck, dragging every eye like a weight on a chain, and he focused on the huddle of his family up the green grass hill.
Taylor spoke urgently to JT.
Jaz had collapsed on the picnic table, head in her arms, sobbing; Rosalie beside her, small and round, her arm over Jaz’s back.
His mum was trying to get out of her chair, and couldn’t. Her arms were tangled in the brightly crocheted rug, and his father? Brix couldn’t remember ever seeing big Stan so broken. His dad was on his knees by his mum’s side, vainly pawing through the rug trying to find where the crochet ended and her hand began, with Jake towering over him, trying to encourage him up.
Brix thought to himself: look at us. We’re all falling apart.
CHAPTER
28
‘Is he angry with us, my Jaydah? Is that why Brix went away?’ her mum asked in a whisper, eyes flicking behind Jaydah’s shoulder as if Brix might suddenly appear in the caravan doorframe.
‘No, Mum. Of course not,’ she soothed.
Though privately she wondered: how could he not be annoyed his life had taken such a complicated turn?
‘He’s not angry with us. Today wasn’t Jaz’s fault, it was those shitty kids who teased her and lost her book.’
Her lips thinned. Little bastards.
Thanks to Taylor’s suggestion they’d stopped at the chemist in Manjimup to fill a prescription for melatonin for Jaz. Taylor rang it ahead for them. The stuff was a natural syrup, Taylor said, same as they used for blind kids who couldn’t sense day and night, same as they used to help kids with ADHD sleep. They’d encouraged Jaz to take some with the bucket of chips they’d bought because it was the only thing that could help to make her feel better.
Taylor said it would help to keep Jaz calm, and it wouldn’t do any harm. ‘It’s Brix who has to drive you safely home. He’ll concentrate better if she’s not all worked up in the car. It will give her a couple of days where she won’t get so anxious and maybe in that time you can work out something else to replace the scrapbook she lost.’
The drive home had been awful. Jaz had finally fallen asleep about an hour after she’d taken the melatonin, and for most of the time nobody said a word. Brix certainly didn’t. He’d driven with his chin firm and his lips tight, and his face a thing of thunder and cloud.
She remembered assuring him months ago—in the carpark of Chalk ‘n’ Cheese café—that if he’d marry her it didn’t have to be a life sentence. She just needed his help long enough to get her mother out.
Her mouth twisted. At that point Brix hadn’t even known Jaz existed.
Because I lied to him.
Her mum let out a sad sigh. ‘I shouldn’t have let her go with the book to the water. I should have gone to the water with her.’
‘Mum, Jazzy should be free to go wherever she wants! She would have been fine if those little bastards—’ this time she said it aloud ‘—hadn’t wanted to show off to their mates and make fun of the retard.’
‘I should have gone with her. I was speaking with Ella. She was asking me about Jaz’s swimming and I was telling her about us going to Busselton all summer and that she is swimming very well and we cannot get her out of the water most of the time until she is blue.’ A miserable smile broke around the words.
‘We can’t watch her every second of every day. She should have been safe, Mum. It’s not your fault. The people to blame are those boys. Not Jaz. Not me. Not you.’
‘But where is Brix now? Why did he go away? He is not back yet and it is dark.’
She wished she could say: He’ll be back, Mum.
Oh, God, did she wish she could say ‘He’ll be back’.
What she said was: ‘I don’t know where he went. I’m sure it will be fine.’
But those old doubts—that she’d muddied Brix’s peaceful life with all her Tully crap—had nagged her on the drive back from Chalk Hill, as Brix sat behind the wheel, steering with his knuckles white and his jaw tight as a wire.
When she’d asked, he’d said he was thinking about the idiots at the water-ski park, but was he? Was he thinking about the idiots or was he thinking about this mess he’d got his nice neat life into?
Jaydah didn’t do nice or neat. She was messy as hell.
He’d driven home, helped them get a groggy Jaz into the toilet for a wee and then helped them get her into the van where she’d crashed onto the bed. Jaydah had gone to use the bathroom in the house and when she’d finished Brix had gone.
A snore broke through the moment and both of them looked to the bed at the end of the caravan, and the lump of Jaz beneath the quilt. Her face was soft and slack in sleep, and Jaydah sent a message of thanks to Taylor yet again. A good night’s sleep would always be welcome.
‘I’m going inside, Mum. Do you want a cup of tea? Come with me if you do.’
‘No, my Jaydah, thank you. You need your privacy. I hope
Brix comes back soon.’
‘He will.’
He will.
Please let him come back soon.
* * *
Brix parked at the cottage and pulled the shopping bag from the seat beside him, happy to stretch his legs and be out of the car. Between Chalk Hill, Margaret River and Bunbury he’d driven about eight hours today.
The house was quiet as was the caravan but, unlike the darkened van, the house lights were bright.
He slipped inside. The television played a music channel and as he stepped through the kitchen, Jaydah turned the television off.
‘Hi,’ he said.
‘You came back.’
‘Of course I came back! Don’t tell me you’ve been sitting here thinking—’
He put the bag on the kitchen table and crossed the floor in three paces as Jaydah rose from the couch and came to meet him.
Her hug was fierce.
He put her from him so he could look in her face. ‘Have you been crying? How’s Jaz? You haven’t been sitting here thinking I’d shot through, have you?’
She swiped at her tears, eyes all puffy and red-rimmed.
‘You did, didn’t you? Oh, JT, you’re an idiot. As if I’d go and not come back! How many times over the years have I come back for you? Whether you were ready for me or not. I was always coming back for you.’
‘You took off without saying anything. It’s been hours!’
‘I should have sent you a text. I didn’t even think. It didn’t occur to me you’d think I’d gone. Like, gone.’
‘I’ve brought all my shit into your life,’ she moaned through wet eyes, looking anywhere but at him.
‘You’ve brought awesome shit into my life! Jaydah, you’ve brought you. All I ever wanted was you.’
‘But you got my mum. You got Jaz …’
‘I told you I have broad shoulders.’
She put her hands to his chin and her eyes searched his face. ‘I’m so sorry I never told you about Jaz. Things could have been so much better if I’d reached out to you, to someone like Lynne Farrell, to anyone really. I let my arsehole father run my life through fear of what he’d do if I didn’t.’
A breeze stirred the curtains. He’d been trying to keep quiet when he came in, so he wouldn’t disturb Jaz if she was asleep in the caravan, but he can’t have properly latched the back door.
She said, ‘I told you when I asked you to marry me that it didn’t have to be forever—’
‘JT—’
She put her finger to his lips. ‘No, let me finish. If you don’t want this whole roadshow of the three of us, that’s all okay. Now that we’re out from my dad I can find another way.’
‘What other way?’
‘The three of us on our own. We’d be okay.’
Fear gripped his insides and tugged. ‘No way. No way. You don’t get to bail out on me now, JT. I’m in this for the long haul. I’m in this for the better or for the worse thing. I’ve got room for the whole entire lot of you.’
‘But your life is so complicated now!’ It was almost a wail.
‘Complicated is fine. Jesus, JT. You’re the one who told me how special Jaz was that day at the airstrip. She is special. I love how she takes apples and carrots down to the horses but they get the apples because she eats the carrots. I love how she bought orange bathers because orange bathers make her swim faster, and how she steals all the orange snakes out of the packet.’
‘But—’
Brix put his hands low around her ribs and squeezed. ‘I want the entire package. I want the Tully combo, the whole enchilada, the whole box and dice.’ He put his hands on her stomach. ‘And I want our baby too. You were right, JT. He’s ours. We made him together.’
‘Or her.’
‘Or her.’
‘I don’t deserve you,’ she said softly, leaking the words into his chest. ‘I lied, and I lied again, and you still look at me like you love me. You’re so good and honest and loyal. You’re steadfast, Brix. You don’t waver.’
‘So what does that make you, JT? You stuck by your family where so many women in your position would up anchor and run and not a soul would blame them for doing that. You’re as loyal as they come. You’re as strong as it gets. I’ve said that to you before: you’re the strongest woman I know.’
‘It wasn’t enough. Never enough. I could have done so much more and I didn’t.’
‘Stop it. Stop it right now. That’s your father talking, JT, and he’s not even here. You did the best you could. Jesus, you were only a kid yourself when all this started and you hung in there all those years and stopped Jaz and Rosalie getting hurt! You have people who love you. So many people. My family, Taylor, Ella, Irene. That’s not even counting me, your mum or Jaz. Half the Chalk Hill Bowling Club is head over heels for you.’
‘I’m a Tully. You’re a Honeychurch. We’re more chalk and cheese than Abe’s café.’
‘I don’t care about that. I couldn’t give a shit about any of that. You have always,’ he tilted her chin to make her meet his gaze, ‘always been the woman I love. There has never been anyone else but you for me since the day you whacked me with your earphones on the school bus.’
Her silence swelled through the kitchen, a physical thing spreading heavy as the sky.
He dropped to one knee, right there, on the jarrah floorboards.
‘What are you doing?’
He took a steadying breath at the same time as his hands captured hers. ‘Jaydah, will you marry me?’
‘Didn’t we do this already?’
‘You did this. You asked me and we know the reasons for that. This is me asking you because I love you.’
‘But—’
He cut her off. ‘JT, I’ve loved you since we were fourteen. I will love you when we’re one hundred and fourteen. I want to help you look after Rosalie and Jasmine and I want to raise our new baby, and any other babies we have, with you. I want to make you happy for the rest of my life. You’re all I want.’
‘Wow.’ Her eyes shone.
‘Yes wow.’
‘Okay,’ she said simply, and a huge smile broke over her face like sunlight, or maybe moonlight, filling her up from inside, spilling out.
‘You believe me now?’
She tugged on his hands, bringing him back to his feet. ‘I do.’
‘Good. You should. It’s the truth.’
He kissed her, familiar and fierce, sweet and total.
When the kiss finished he held her close, his chin on the top of her head and her ear pressed to his chest where his heart beat a tattoo, warm and true.
There was a click at the back door and he stilled, listening. ‘Either I didn’t shut the door properly, or someone came in,’ he whispered.
‘I’m pretty sure that was Mum going out.’
‘She was in here?’
JT nodded.
‘You think she was listening?’
‘She’s been worried.’
‘About Jaz and what happened at the ski park?’
‘About you more, I think.’
‘Why?’
‘She thought that you wouldn’t want us after today. Where did you disappear to this afternoon anyway? What’s in there?’ She indicated the bag he’d shoved to the kitchen countertop.
‘Officeworks. I went looking for a new scrapbook. I had to go to Bunbury because everything else was shut. Sunday trading strikes again.’
Jaydah crossed the kitchen to investigate the bag.
‘I bought ink, too, so if Jaz wants to look for more pictures of horses tomorrow and print them out she can. I don’t know how much ink is in my printer.’
Wordlessly, Jaydah’s fingers sifted through the ink cartridges, twisting magenta, yellow and cyan boxes like they were precious rubies or pearls.
‘You’re such a good man, Brix.’
‘We’ll get there, JT. We’ll get there together. For richer, for poorer. I promised you.’
‘And you always keep your promises.’ S
he put the ink in the bag and came back to him.
‘I do. So you have to convince Rosalie I want her to stay.’
‘I think you already did.’
‘Well good. Because where I’m taking you for more hardcore convincing … your mum can’t come.’
She giggled as he swept her up and she laughed as he laid her on their bed, but as his fingers unbuttoned her shirt and tugged it loose of her pants and then slid her out of the pants too, she had nothing left but her smile.
Not that it mattered. Her smile was all he needed.
CHAPTER
29
In the middle of March, Brix got the call he’d been dreading since he’d heard about his mum’s tumour. The call came from his dad, and his dad asked him to come home.
‘Mum’s asking for you, mate. I don’t think we’ve got her with us much longer. This bloody tumour has knocked the fight from her. I think she just wants it over and done with now.’
He talked with Jaydah about it, but in the end he drove to Chalk Hill alone. They’d come for the funeral, JT said, but she wouldn’t push it by bringing Jaz back twice.
Jaz hadn’t slept the night through since her scrapbook sank in Pickles’s dam, and judging by the number of times he’d seen the mattress pulled out of the caravan, she’d been wetting the bed.
She’d been steadily filling the new scrapbook with horses, but not Melbourne Cup winners, for a reason she didn’t explain. This time she was filling the pages with pictures only of horses that raced in orange silks.
That three-hour drive took the longest of any drive Brix had made between Margaret River and Chalk Hill—he drove with the window down so the air could dry his face because his damn eyes kept springing tears on him.
It was a Wednesday morning, and the town didn’t seem to care that the population note on its Welcome To Chalk Hill sign would soon be reduced by one.
Irene Loveday walked her white dog past the Post Office. The fairy lights flashed in the window of Begg & Robertson Real Estate and the van delivering the Mount Barker & Districts Courier double-parked outside the bakery, and didn’t care that Brix had to stop for oncoming traffic before he could get around.