Let Her Go

by Let Her Go (retail) (epub)

  * * *

  Zoe had waited two more days before leaving the island. As he’d promised, Lachlan hadn’t contacted her, and while she was relieved, she was also disappointed. But she knew that he was showing her in his own way that he was decent, that she could trust him. So she had trusted that he’d also seen their lawyer. Now Zoe had to do her part and bring Louise home.

  This morning, she had sent a text message to Lachlan and her parents to say that she would be home that evening; then she’d packed up and caught the last ferry off the island. When they arrived at the O’Connor Ferry Landing in Fremantle, she’d staggered off the boat with Louise and looked around, but there was no one waiting for her. She’d collected her bags, then she and Louise had caught a taxi home.

  After paying the driver, Zoe struggled up the path with Louise and the luggage. At the door, she held out her hand and let it hover for a moment just in front of the door handle. She wondered if she should knock. A part of her hoped Lachlan would be there, but she knew he wouldn’t be. She began searching in her handbag for her keys, but Louise started to squirm, then to cry.

  ‘Hold on, Louise.’ She tried to lift the baby up on her hip, but Louise’s cries got louder. Zoe’s eyes filled with tears too – Louise had been dragged around so much. ‘Oh darling, Mummy’s sorry.’ She took out her keys, then put both arms around Louise, patting her back and swaying from side to side, murmuring into her ear. Louise rested her cheek on Zoe’s shoulder and her cries quietened, then stopped. Zoe waited until they were both calm, then unlocked the door and stepped into the house.

  ‘Hello?’

  There was no answer, of course. She dropped her keys on the hall table near the door, put down the bags, and went down the hall with Louise still in her arms. The floorboards were streaked with swipes of soapy water, and she could smell furniture polish. In a vase on the kitchen table was a bunch of flowers, still wrapped in the florist’s foil. She opened the fridge: there was fresh milk, cheese, butter and eggs, a tub of her favourite pâté, and a foil tray of lasagne from the local butcher. She closed the door again and opened the cupboard: three new jars of baby food, formula, a bottle of red wine. Zoe closed her eyes, filled with tenderness for Lachlan, but then she reminded herself what he’d done, and what she stood to lose.

  She busied herself with feeding, bathing and settling Louise. When the baby was snug and fast asleep in her own bed, Zoe finally sat down at the kitchen table. The house felt far emptier than it ever had when Lachlan was away working. Her chin quivered for a moment, but she’d had enough of crying. She got up again, put the oven on to heat the lasagne, and opened the bottle of wine. As she sipped a glass, she pulled the small envelope out of the bunch of flowers on the table; she looked at it for a few moments, then opened it quickly. It held a small card, with a picture of a heart on the front, and Lachlan’s handwriting inside.

  I love you. Meet me tomorrow, 10 am, C.Y. O’Connor Beach. Please.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Zoe turned the car off the main road. The safety barriers next to the railway line were raised, but she slowed the car anyway and looked both ways before accelerating across the metal grid, her body shuddering as the tyres bumped over the tracks. The image of a train hurtling towards her flashed before her eyes and she immediately thought of Lachlan. She pushed away thoughts that she didn’t want to acknowledge, then sped up and turned right.

  There were a few empty cars in the parking area, including Lachlan’s mum’s car; he was here already. Zoe stopped the car, got out and then, with Louise on her hip, hurried past the wooden gazebo shading gas barbecues, and along the path through the green lawn towards the beach. She couldn’t see it from here, just the ocean over the crest of the dunes, and the dark outline of Rottnest on the horizon. To her left, the red cranes of the ports stretched up into the blue sky, towering over the buildings like monstrous megafauna. But to her right, she saw nothing but the Indian Ocean, flat and still. She started up the slope to the top of the dune, her feet slipping in the loose sand. On either side of the track, a wire fence held back clumps of spinifex. Louise wriggled; Zoe shifted her into her other arm. Over the crest of the dune, the long beach swept out to her right. In the distance, a dog ran through the shallows, its bark faint but joyous, and ahead of it walked someone in a large floppy hat and billowing shirt. But Zoe couldn’t see Lachlan. She frowned, scanning the edges of the dune. Now she saw him, a small figure, sitting alone against the steep slope of the dune, arms hugging his knees. She could just make out the red stripe on his pale grey baseball cap.

  She walked quickly down the track onto the beach. Her feet sank into the sand; she kicked off her thongs, left them at the fence post and started out towards Lachlan. She was faster barefoot, but then she stood on something sharp; her leg buckled. The broken edge of an opaque milky cuttlebone poked up through the sand. She stared at it for a moment, thinking of the times she and Lachlan had gone jigging for squid, and how she had loved to watch him at home pulling out the translucent quill and spattering the sink with black ink. How he had changed; how they both had. She picked it up. The wind blew and she squeezed her eyes closed and shielded Louise’s face with her body.

  As she neared Lachlan, she saw that he was staring out to sea. She knew what he was looking at. They’d been here before, and sat together in this very spot. In front of him, a rusted chunk of orange metal rose from the edge of the water like the jagged tail of a whale. Beside it, the tide sucked and bubbled over the submerged outline of another, rectangular piece of metal, all that was left of a ship. The rest of the wreck was below the sand, covered up by more than a hundred years of relentless shifting sands and tides. But that wasn’t what he was looking at. About thirty metres offshore, a bronze statue rose from the ocean. A man on his horse, his head turned back, looking north towards Fremantle Harbour. The horse’s neck was long and stretched as it whinnied into the air with a frenzied look on its face, frozen in time as it would have looked a hundred years ago as it heard the gunshot, felt the jolt and the warm blood spattering over it, and felt its rider slump down in the saddle as he dropped his gun into the ocean. Zoe and Lachlan had sat here before and watched the tide rise; watched the horse and man being slowly swallowed by the ocean.

  Why had Lachlan chosen this place? She slowed down as she approached him, not wanting to startle him. He didn’t look up, but continued to stare out to sea. She sat down next to him, crossed her legs and propped Louise up in the space in front of her. She reached out her hand, slowly, until it rested on Lachlan’s arm, still hugging his knees.

  ‘He took his teeth out, you know.’

  Zoe frowned. ‘What?’

  Lachlan nodded his head towards the statue. ‘Before he did it. He left his daughter at home, picked up his gun, rode his horse out here into the water, then took out his teeth and put them in his pocket before he shot himself.’

  Zoe closed her eyes. ‘Lachlan,’ she whispered.

  ‘I always thought you’d have to be in a rage, you know, out of control to do something so … final, but it’s not always like that, is it?’

  ‘Lachlan, babe. You’re scaring me.’ She leaned into him and laid her head against his shoulder. Louise pulled herself to her feet and batted her hands against Zoe’s chest.

  He let out a laugh. ‘Don’t worry. I can’t take my teeth out.’

  ‘Jesus!’ She sat back from him. ‘You think it’s funny?’

  He laughed, then sobbed. He put his head on his knees and cried, while Zoe tried not to cry too. What should she do? She reached her right arm around his shoulders and pulled him towards her, her eyes wide.

  He looked at her, and then at Louise. ‘I’m so sorry, Zoe. So sorry, I don’t know what’s got into me, I can’t believe I’ve been such a dickhead. The time on Rottnest, it made me realise how much I’ve got to lose. And leaving the two of you there while I got on that ferry by myself, the empty house … I just can’t. I can’t be on my own. I need you both. But what can we do? I’ve m
essed up, so much —’

  Zoe was unsure of what to say. ‘It’s OK, please, stop …’

  ‘I can’t believe I did it. I can’t believe I hurt you.’

  She couldn’t stop her own tears now. ‘You’ve got to talk to me! I don’t understand what’s going on! Is it Louise? Is it me?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I’ve been telling you that for ages, it’s not you.’

  ‘What then? Is this one of those “It’s not you, it’s me” things? Just tell me, Lachie. I can’t do this any more. I don’t know what’s going on, and there’s so much else to worry about with Nadia, I just need to know what’s happening with you so I can try to fix everything. Why are you here? Why did you want to meet me? I thought we’d decided what to do when we were on Rottnest!’

  He shrugged. Zoe took deep breaths, stroked Louise’s head while she played with the sand. She had to pull back; she knew that if she kept on at him, he’d retreat again. She waited.

  Eventually he spoke again, quietly, his voice ragged. ‘I’ve been coming here a lot, while you were away, just to think. You know they sang to make him crazy?’

  ‘Who did, Lachlan?’ she whispered. ‘Who sang?’

  ‘The Noongars, the Aborigines. When he built Freo harbour, they cursed him.’

  ‘What does this have to do with anything?’ Zoe knew she was screeching but she couldn’t help it. ‘You’re scaring me.’

  ‘Sometimes I wonder if I’m cursed, you know. I feel like I’ve been going crazy. Maybe I have.’ He turned his head to the left, caught her eye. ‘I need to tell you about something.’

  ‘What? Go on.’

  ‘After … when I got back from Rottnest, I went to the doctor.’

  She exhaled. Thank God. ‘Good. What did he say?’

  Lachlan continued as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘I went to the doctor because I haven’t been well. I haven’t been able to describe it. I’ve been … it’s like I’m not here any more. I keep having bad dreams, I feel so bloody angry about little things, and in other ways I’m … disconnected. The doctor asked me when it started. And I know exactly when it started.’

  Zoe waited. She knew too. When Louise was born.

  ‘The day Louise came, you remember I was up at work.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘There was an accident that day. A young bloke. Killed.’ His voice caught, the words stuck in the space between his private thoughts and speech. ‘I was there. It was at the pit.’

  Zoe saw the tiny drops of sweat starting on his brow, trickling down from below his cap, and on his upper lip. His hands trembled and she felt his muscles tense beneath the arm she still held around him.

  ‘It was hot out there, so bloody hot. There were flies buzzing around my face, big blowflies, filthy things. I swatted one away, wiped my face. It came away red, dirty from the dust. I was sick of it, wished I was home with you, getting ready for Louise. I didn’t want to be there. I wasn’t concentrating, you see. I was supervising, meant to be overseeing it all. It was bright, even with my sunnies on, the sun was bouncing between the sky and the desert, and I was so bloody sick of it. It just gets you, under your chin, the palms of your hands, in the spaces between your cheek and your sunnies. I was standing there looking down into the pit, thinking of you, the baby, how hot it was. The trucks looked like toys, driving down around the edges of the mine, scooping up the ground then struggling back up again. It all seemed to be under control. I turned around to go back to the office, into the air-con.’

  Lachlan stopped, looked up to the sky, and a tear dropped down from beneath his sunglasses. He took a deep breath then breathed out slowly. Zoe could feel his body trembling.

  ‘Go on,’ she whispered.

  ‘Now, when I think back to it, I’m sure I heard him shouting. I can hear him now, at night, in my sleep. He’s screaming out, “Stop!” Sometimes he calls my name, but I know it would have been impossible to hear him above the roar of the engines, the din of all the machinery. But something made me turn around, maybe it was him.’ Lachlan rubbed his face with both hands, groaned. His foot tapped up and down, up and down on the sand. ‘It didn’t make sense. You’ve seen the trucks, haven’t you?’

  She nodded her head. She had, when she’d visited Kalgoorlie with Lachlan.

  He continued. ‘The wheels, they’re as tall as two men, three maybe. They’re like something from another planet. That’s what it’s like up there, it’s like being on the moon. When I think back, it’s like a movie. People were shouting, waving at the truck driver. The truck stopped. It was full of ore. Do you know how heavy that is?’

  ‘No,’ she said quietly.

  ‘This stuff is what the core of the earth is made of; you can’t imagine how much it weighs. Then everything seemed to go into slow motion. It was silent, except for the thud of my boots as I ran across the hard, baked dirt. Boom boom, boom boom, like horses thundering around a racetrack. But it was more than sound: I could feel the shock waves from my steps, the clunk of the gears of the truck as it tried to reverse. Then it was just my breath, panting, louder than anything else around me, then my voice yelling, screaming.’

  He looked at her now, his face white. ‘Zoe, it was like that scene in The Wizard of Oz when the house lands on the wicked witch and all you can see is the stripy stocking and witch’s shoe. All I could see was his work boot. The sole of it was caked in red mud.’ He stopped, eyes wide.

  ‘Oh, Lach —’

  He spoke rapidly. ‘It was just all wrong, it didn’t make sense. His foot was at the wrong angle, and all I saw was his tiny boot and this massive tyre. I kept running but it was like I was on a treadmill and I wasn’t getting any closer even though I ran and ran and ran, it was always out of reach, but of course it was all just too late.’

  ‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry …’ Zoe wiped her own tears away. Lachlan’s face was as pale as the pearly cuttlebone on the sand next to them.

  ‘Then it was like someone flicked a switch and everything went back to normal. The sounds were deafening, everyone was shouting, you could hear the terror, even the machines seemed to scream, people were running everywhere, dropping things on the ground and sprinting as if somehow they could do something. The driver had climbed down and was just staring at him. I yelled at him to move the truck, get it off him, but he was frozen to the spot. Someone else must have moved it, but …’ Lachlan broke off, staring out to the statue in the ocean.

  Zoe picked up Louise and cuddled her close with one arm, her other hand over her own mouth, trying to imagine what he must have seen, but unable to imagine it at all.

  Lachlan’s voice was hard now. ‘I was useless. Do you want to know what I did? I turned around and threw my guts up into the dirt. I moved my feet out of the way so I wouldn’t get any vomit on them.’ He turned to look at her, his eyes bloodshot and dark with pain. ‘I was worried about puking on my own boots when that was all that was left of him. What kind of a person does that make me?’

  ‘Darling, you —’

  He held his hand up, almost shouting now. ‘I was meant to be in charge. Every time I close my eyes, I see the boot: the ridges of the rubber sole, how worn down it was around the toes, the clumps of red dirt, the fraying laces. And when I sleep, I see blood dripping down it, pouring down and pooling beneath it because the ground is so dry that it won’t soak anything up.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she pleaded, but Zoe knew why: she’d been so preoccupied with Louise and Nadia that she hadn’t asked. Hadn’t given him a chance to talk. The space, the time.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Oh, Lachlan.’ She moved onto her knees and leaned towards him, still holding Louise. She embraced him, feeling his body heave.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she murmured.

  ‘I’m so sorry I hurt you, you must know that. I love you and Louise.’

  ‘Shh, that’s all that matters. We’ll get through this. We’re all that matters. Thank you for telling me.’

  ‘I shoul
d have told you before, but I just couldn’t …’ He sniffed, wiped his nose with the back of his shaking hand and pulled back.

  ‘It’s OK, everything’s going to be OK now. You, me and Louise, we’ll get through this.’

  ‘But I’ve ruined it all. You were right: you’re better off without me. We can’t risk losing Louise, and I’m the reason Nadia’s trying to get Louise back, because of what I did.’ He clenched his fist and slammed it into the sand beside him. ‘It’s all my fault!’

  Zoe let go of him. All her doubts, all her fear, flew out of her mind, out with the easterly wind over the water towards Rottnest, then further out over the Indian Ocean until the memory of them was merely a whisper.

  ‘Look at me, Lachlan, look at me.’ She gently put her hand on his face and turned it towards her. ‘Don’t even think about that. We will not lose her. You are her father. Louise belongs with us, and if Nadia wants to try and challenge that, then let her.’

  Zoe looked down at the baby, her eyes squinting in the sun. Lachlan was Louise’s father, biologically and emotionally. And Zoe was Louise’s mother, not genetically, but in every other sense of the word.

  She looked out again over the water, lapping around the statue, slowly rising over the man and his horse as the tide came in.

  ‘No more running, Lachlan. No more running. This has to end.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Zoe cleaned Louise’s face with a baby wipe before unclipping her car restraints. ‘Shit! There’s soggy biscuit all over this top already.’ She looked through the car to Lachlan, sitting in the driver’s seat. ‘I told you not to give her anything else to eat once I’d changed her. This was a new top.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘You took about five changes of clothes anyway!’

  She glared at him. ‘Very funny. I don’t need this right now.’ Her hands shook as she lifted Louise out, holding her away from her own blouse. ‘Get me another top from the nappy bag. I really wanted her to wear this one …’