by Debra Oswald
‘When the guard dogs started barking, Mick went ballistic. Kieran kept saying to me, “Don’t worry. He’s just a bit amped up. It’ll be okay.” Mick was smashing the glass panels around the front door with a sledgehammer, but the whole time, the dogs kept barking. To shut them up, he started hitting them with the sledgehammer. I tried to pull the dogs away so they wouldn’t get hurt.’
‘That’s how you got bitten.’
Zoe nodded. ‘I couldn’t help them anyway.’
Shaken by the bites, Zoe had retreated into the garden and Kieran rushed over to her. That was when Mick clobbered the rottweilers until they went down, then continued swinging the sledgehammer until their heads were pulpy masses of fur and brain and fragments of bone spread across the sandstone porch. One of the dogs was convulsing, the hind legs twitching with its few last spasms. Zoe reached down to hold the leg, with some ridiculous impulse to soothe the poor animal. To o angry to cry, she kept screaming at Kieran, ‘Look what he’s done!’
Mick went inside the house, yelling for Kieran to follow him.
‘Let’s go, Kieran! Let’s just go!’ Zoe hissed.
Kieran was jittery, in shock about Mick killing the dogs. ‘Let me just think. Let me just think a sec.’
‘What? Think about what? We have to go!’
He held the car keys out to her. ‘You go. You take the car. That’s safer. And your poor hand – you should go.’
Mick was calling ‘Kieran! Kieran!’ in drawn-out yowling sounds, yelling the name over and over. Kieran scrunched up his face, trying to shut out that howling voice, trying to think clearly.
‘Look, I reckon I should stay. Better make sure Mick doesn’t do anything else. I mean, someone has to – I just need to think . . .’
‘Fuck you, Kieran. Are you crazy? Are you an idiot?’
‘Shut up a sec. Shut up and let me think!’
‘No. I’m the idiot. For coming here. For believing the shit you say. For ever being with a moron like you.’
Zoe snatched the keys from Kieran’s hand and hurried to the car. She thought he might follow her but he didn’t. She would take care of herself.
She drove back down the driveway and turned onto the road that would eventually take her to the highway. But she’d only travelled a short distance when the car conked out. She clung to the steering wheel and gave in to fit of sobbing – about the dogs, the horrible things she’d said to Kieran, the whole mess she should never have allowed to happen. She was a terrible person to leave Kieran stranded with Mick.
She tried to start the engine one more time but it just gave up a guttural scraping noise. She jumped out of the vehicle and ran back along the road to the big house, but by the time she reached the big house, Kieran had disappeared.
Sheena selected a face cloth from the absurd array of lush white towels in the hotel bathroom. How many towels did people need? How many showers were the rich wankers who stayed in these places having per day?
She wet the cloth and used it to wipe and cool Zoe’s face. Talking about that night at the Dural house, the girl had whipped herself up into a weeping, trembling state, and she needed to settle down.
Sheena left Zoe to rest and returned to the lounge room, thinking she’d kill time flipping through the fashion mags fanned out on the coffee table. She wanted to fix her eyes on the glossy pictures and fill her head with that rubbish rather than dwell on the repugnant scene the girl had described, rather than imagine Kieran being out there somewhere with a monster like Mick.
Earlier that afternoon, while the nurse was tending to the girl’s dressings, Sheena had taken the opportunity to use the red payphone in the waiting room and ring the office number Joe had given her. She heard the hitch in his breathing when she told him Zoe was found.
‘How is she? Is she all right?’
‘Not pregnant, not addicted to heroin, alive,’ Sheena had replied and then given him a quick report on Zoe’s physical state.
Even over the phone line, she could hear Joe immediately quarantine his feelings and gather himself to take on the Mr Responsible role. ‘Okay, I’ll ring Celia. Sort out a few things and then come to you. Where are you now?’
‘Darlinghurst. Listen, the kid’s temperature is still high and she’s pretty shredded. She needs to have a lie-down.’
‘Yes. Yes, of course. If I book a hotel near where you are, can you take her there in a cab?’
‘Sure.’
The hotel was tucked next to Rushcutters Bay, a protected curve of the harbour filled with chinking sounds from the rigging of rich blokes’ yachts. Approaching the sleek reception desk, Sheena and Zoe must have looked a ropy pair – a teenage girl so feverish she appeared drunk, with a bandaged hand, dressed in a grubby sarong and a cheap jacket, accompanied by an older female who was clearly not a creature who belonged in this luxurious habitat. Sheena had tensed up, ready to be hassled by the reception staff. But it turned out Joe had phoned ahead and paid with his Bankcard, so check-in was a smooth process, lubricated with smiling, as all transactions must be for the folks who stayed in such hotels without even thinking about it.
The unctuous young man behind the desk handed Sheena the room key and offered to have someone help with their luggage.
‘No luggage,’ Sheena responded, with a defiant look. She didn’t want these people to think she was impressed or intimidated or pretending to be someone she wasn’t.
It was the plushest room Sheena had ever been inside – well, not even a room, it was a fucking suite, done up in chocolatey and creamy decor with a few discreet golden touches. While Zoe slept in the gigantic bedroom, Sheena could ponce around in the whole other room – a lounge with sofas, teak coffee tables and slim side-tables that didn’t seem to have any purpose other than supporting the bronzed lamps sitting on them. Along one wall was a long timber unit with a desk, a minibar, a TV set and whatever else a travelling Important Guy might need. Broad windows looked out over the city, but so high up and insulated that there was no sound from the traffic below – it was like being wrapped in foam casing.
Joe was kidding himself if he thought he could miraculously make everything right by booking a suite in this fancy-pants hotel. As if that could undo all the shit that had happened. But then Sheena checked herself for being a cynical bitch. Joe had probably just booked the one hotel he knew was nearby. And oddly, this did feel like the right place to be now – a quiet, orderly waiting room between the world Zoe had been inhabiting and what would presumably be her return journey home.
Sheena had been babysitting Zoe in the suite for a couple of hours when there was a gentle knock and then Joe’s voice through the door. ‘It’s just me.’
As soon as Sheena opened the door, he kissed her on the cheek. ‘Thank you, Sheena. Thanks for taking care of her.’
She shrugged, ‘I just found her,’ and indicated the door to the bedroom.
Zoe was awake, and when she saw Joe, she sat up in the bed, anxious about what to expect from him. He smiled broadly, but at the same instant Sheena heard him breathe in sharply to see the girl so ill.
Joe embraced Zoe, but carefully, handling a fragile thing. She let her weight fall against him, her forehead flopped against his chest, as if she could sink into the safety of this man. He rested his cheek against the top of Zoe’s head and struggled not to cry. It struck Sheena that there was something compelling – something that could undo her – about watching a guy trying not to cry.
Eventually Joe said, ‘I left a message for your mother on her answering machine. I imagine she’ll phone as soon as she gets the message. She’ll be desperate to talk to you.’
Zoe answered in a frayed whisper, ‘I don’t think I can talk to her.’
Joe took a step back, puffed out a breath and looked at Zoe.
‘I tried to ring her,’ she said. ‘Couldn’t ever do it.’
Sheena was surprised to hear the hard edge from Joe. ‘It was cruel, Zoe.’
Zoe opened her mouth to respond but nothing
came out.
‘It was cruel,’ he said again.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s going to be difficult for me to forgive you. If you weren’t so sick right now, I’d shake you hard. I’d shake the teeth right out of your stupid head.’
The girl crumpled into tears and he softened immediately, holding her tightly again as she wept. ‘It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m so happy to see you. It’s okay.’
He had a way of saying It’s okay that made every fucking thing on earth feel okay – at least inside this soundproofed executive hotel suite.
*
Joe and Sheena went back into the lounge room, leaving Zoe to sleep. He was restless – possibly unsettled to be here with Sheena, but most likely he was just anxious for Celia to call.
‘Have you eaten?’ he asked. ‘I could order some room-service food or something.’
Sheena shook her head. She should go now. There was no need for her to hang around now Joe was here to take care of things.
‘Look, one thing I was thinking,’ she said, ‘Zoe needs some clean clothes to put on. It might freak Celia out a bit less when she sees her.’
‘Oh yes . . . that’s a good idea. I wouldn’t know what —’
‘I could go and buy her some stuff.’
‘Thank you. Would you? Thanks.’
Sheena had to walk a long way from the hotel towards the centre of town to find a street with clothing shops. Even though she was physically tired, the lengthy walk turned out to be a relief, an opportunity just to be a person walking along the footpath, a respite from the business of thinking about Kieran and the girl and any of that. It was a chance to breathe, like stepping out of the hospital room of a dying person for a brief stroll.
Once she found the right kind of shop, Sheena made a pretty good guess at the sizes, but it was still weird buying clothes for another person. With a wad of Joe’s twenty-dollar notes, Sheena bought Zoe a bra and undies, a nightie, jeans and a cotton top with loose sleeves that would be easy to put on over the bandages. She found a warm sweater in the shade of blue she’d noticed Zoe liked to wear, which had a loose polo neck to cover the bruising without being tight enough to hurt.
Anyone who saw Sheena walking along with shopping bags hanging off her arms would assume she’d been on a jolly shopping expedition. The regular people she passed on the footpath had no notion of the drama going on in the hotel room one suburb away. They were just going about their normal lives.
Sheena’s normal life – such as it was – would resume soon, and she would have to squeeze herself back into some kind of realistic accommodation of the shitty way the world worked. She would like to know if Kieran was okay. She would like to know. But whatever. The cops would find him eventually, maybe dead, and the news would filter through to their mother and finally to Sheena.
Sheena suddenly realised people in the street were staring at her – something about the expression on her face must have looked stricken or anguished, and folks didn’t want to be dealing with that when they were strolling past clothing boutiques. She scowled back at one bloke for no particular reason – just to get a fucking grip on herself – and then headed back to Rushcutters Bay.
When Sheena let herself back into the hotel room, Joe was sitting at the desk, talking to his sons on the phone. He signalled hello to Sheena as she draped the clothes on the arm of the sofa and put the leftover cash on the coffee table. Joe mouthed, Thank you.
Sheena moved across to the window and stared down at the yachts in the bay, as if she’d suddenly developed a fanatical interest in boating. She didn’t want Joe to think she was eavesdropping on his phone call, the last part of which was a terse exchange with his estranged wife. Sheena could hear the distinctive truncated sentences, his resolute attempts to be civil, his final sigh of capitulation.
When Joe put down the receiver, he took a moment to shake off the chill of the call and then turned to smile at Sheena. ‘Thanks for getting the clothes. I really appreciate it. Zoe’s sleeping again, which is good, I think.’
‘Yep. Listen, she’s got to keep on the antibiotics. She could easily get blood poisoning from the bites.’
‘Right. Yes. Thanks.’
‘I’ll get out of your way now.’
‘Stay, please. Celia just rang from a service station on the highway. On her way here.’
‘Right. Did Zoe talk to her?’
‘No, she was asleep.’
‘Ah. But hey, I’m sure it’s going to be sweet – well, maybe not sweet but not too shithouse in the end. Anyway, I’ll leave you to it. No one needs me to hang around for the big family reunion, so I’ll head off.’
‘You really should stay, Sheena. Celia has Kieran in the car with her.’
‘What?’
‘Apparently he showed up at the farm. I had no idea.’
Sheena felt her chest, her belly, her throat, clench tight. So the little fuckwit was alive. ‘What’s the story?’
‘Celia didn’t say. She was keen to get back on the road.’
Sheena had a good crack at being acerbic. Hard-boiled. ‘Maybe she’s got my brother trussed up in the tray of her truck. Hopefully sticking pins into the stupid bastard every few miles.’
A second later, she took a huge involuntary intake of breath, as if she’d been underwater a long time, and then the tears came. Joe grabbed the shiny tissue-box holder off the desk and pushed it across the coffee table towards her.
‘Ta,’ said Sheena. It was the second time the guy had handed her tissues, but this time she made sure to keep her distance, leaving the sofa between them as a barrier. Another weepy consolation fuck would not be a helpful complication to throw into the mix.
Instead of having sex, the two of them sat on opposite plush brown sofas and gave the minibar a good walloping. They talked, both of them exhausted, about Zoe and Kieran and the last months, and it was gentle, like a brief lull in battle.
‘I’ve known Zoe since she was a baby,’ said Joe. ‘I loved her before I had kids of my own. There’s a chance, even now, that I love that child more than my own kids. Is that terrible?’
Sheena shrugged. ‘Your mother always said that was so. You’re in agreement with Roza yet again.’
They laughed and selected two more tiny bottles from the minibar.
The day was fading into evening by the time Celia knocked on the hotel-room door. Sheena was shocked when she first laid eyes on her. So much thinner, skin dulled and papery, the light leached out of her eyes. She was breathless from rushing up from the car park, from rushing hundreds of miles to get here. She nodded a quick acknowledgement to Sheena but then looked to Joe.
‘Don’t panic when you see her,’ Joe said. ‘She’s sick, but she’s all right.’
Zoe, having heard the voices outside, was already out of bed, standing barefoot on the bedroom carpet, wearing the hotel bathrobe. Celia threw herself forward like a person running downhill and wrapped her arms around her daughter, chanting her love for the girl and how wonderful it was to find her safe. Celia’s face was lit up – Sheena had never seen a human being’s face transform so utterly in a moment.
Celia and Zoe clung to each other for a long time, both of them crying, sometimes laughing, shaking their heads in disbelief. Every now and then, Celia would lean back at a slight angle so she could take a proper look at the girl, soaking up the sight of her, then she would fold her daughter close again.
Celia had attempted to prepare herself to see Zoe, silently rehearsing during the drive to Sydney, assembling and reworking the lines to say, the things she must be careful not to say.
But the electric charge of seeing her, the physical blast of it, pushed words out of the way. She thought her legs would give way under her. She wasn’t sure her body was strong enough to handle that much feeling going through it without disintegrating.
Then, as she held her daughter, Celia felt strength flood back, as if all the cells and blood and fibres in her body could now settle and restore her po
wer. There was also – of course – anger in there, self-reproach, accusation, those bitter notes, but not for now. Those things might be churning away, but right now, all were overtaken completely by joy.
Celia never wanted to break that embrace, but she could feel Zoe was exhausted and would need to lie down. There would be time later for the two of them to talk, to sit with Zoe’s head in her lap and talk. And at this stage, there was something else Celia needed to do.
‘Kieran’s here,’ she said, checking to see Zoe’s response.
‘What?’ Zoe was thrown, but she was smiling, bright-eyed.
Kieran had suggested he wait in the corridor, anxious not to impose himself or cause any more damage.
‘Come in here!’ Celia called out.
He rushed into the hotel suite and straight through to where Zoe was waiting for him. Celia could see he was awkward – desperate to sweep Zoe up but trying not to be boisterous with the sick girl.
The two of them kissed and wept, tumbling out apologies and explanations – how each had searched for the other across the city, how they must have just missed each other at every place they looked – talking over each other, neither making much sense.
Celia stepped away, into the lounge room, to give Kieran and Zoe time alone. She exchanged a quick smile with Joe, who was over by the desk speaking quietly on the phone.
Sheena was perched on the back of one of the sofas, observing the weepy reunion going on in the other room.
‘Thank you, Sheena,’ Celia said. ‘For finding her, taking care of her.’
Sheena twisted her mouth and shrugged, uncomfortable, as if any kind word was a slap in her face. But bugger that – Celia wanted this woman to receive the thanks and feel at least some of the warmth she offered.