Bonkers

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Bonkers Page 22

by Michelle Holman


  Sherry ignored him and smiled at his wife, who was a picture in a rayon dress the colour of baby kaka and a bilious green cardigan buttoned at the neck. Raylene, or ‘Ray’ as she was known, was built like an ironing board and stood several inches taller than her husband. Sherry couldn’t recall ever seeing the woman smile. ‘And what can I get for you, Ray?’ she asked.

  ‘I’d rather serve myself,’ Brenda’s mother replied irritably, her mouth screwed up tight as a hen’s arse.

  ‘Nonsense!’ Sherry cried heartily. ‘It’s the least I can do to make you feel at home. We so seldom get to see you.’

  Ray glowered at the amount of meat she was given and stalked after her husband, hissing, ‘I’m sure she does it on purpose, Den! Stuck-up cow! Neither of them Jackson girls ever made us feel welcome.’

  ‘Oh, shut up!’ Denny replied testily, concentrating on scooping huge dollops of pasta salad onto his plate. In the past, Ben’s other sister had manned the salad bowls and had once even whacked Denny on the back of the hand with a serving spoon when he’d tried to filch a few extra tomatoes from a bowl with his fingers. Denny loved coming to Ben’s parents’ barbecues because Jill and the girls were such good cooks. Which was more than could be said for Ray and his girls.

  It was a while before Sherry could get Ben to herself out in the garden. They took their plates to the wooden seat under the big five-finger tree and sat down to eat.

  ‘If this is about calling off the wedding, you’re wasting your time.’ Ben said.

  ‘It’s not. I told you, it’s about Lisa.’

  He peered at her in the gathering dark. ‘OK. I’m listening.’

  Sherry hesitated, pushing pasta shells about her plate nervously.

  ‘Sher?’ Ben was puzzled. It wasn’t like his eldest sister to be so hesitant.

  ‘You remember I said I wanted to see Linda Brogan?’ she said at last.

  He groaned. ‘Oh shit. What have you done now?’

  ‘Not what you think!’ she snapped, taking a deep breath. ‘She came and found me.’

  This was met with incredulous silence.

  ‘Linda Brogan came to see you?’

  Sherry nodded and then realized Ben couldn’t see her. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Beeennn!’ Brenda suddenly whined from the deck. ‘How can you see out there to eat? Aren’t you cold?’

  ‘Won’t be long, Brenda!’ Ben called back.

  Sherry seethed. Brenda hated it when Ben spent any time with his mother or sisters. She seemed to see them as competition.

  ‘Didn’t you know, Brenda?’ she called tartly. ‘Ben’s got x-ray vision! He can see through anything!’

  ‘Sherry!’ Ben growled.

  Brenda stomped off across the deck and into the house.

  ‘What happened?’ Ben demanded in a hard voice.

  ‘She came to the garden centre to see Dad, and I happened to be there. It was the day Dad gave Ray Tanner his final warning. She was the customer he swore in front of.’

  Ben made a sound of disbelief. ‘What did she want to see Dad for? How did she know who he was?’

  Sherry stared at the outline of his face in the dark. ‘She knew him. She knew me, too.’

  ‘What do you mean she knew you and Dad?’

  Sherry sighed. Pressing her palms together she clasped them between her thighs. ‘Please, Ben, just hear me out.’ She took a deep breath. ‘We went to a café.’

  ‘You went for a cup of tea with the woman who killed Lisa?’

  ‘I said hear me out!’

  Their mother came onto the deck, hugging herself against the cool night air. ‘You two aren’t fighting, are you?’

  ‘No!’ Sherry barked.

  Ben fumed silently until she kicked him. ‘Ow! No!’

  Jill peered at their shadowy figures beneath the tree. ‘Well it sounds like it to me. I’m dishing up the pavlova. If you want any, you’d better get in quick.’

  She headed back into the house, her shoulders drooping wearily.

  ‘She’s tired,’ Ben said quietly.

  ‘She’s always tired,’ Sherry replied.

  He shifted on the bench. ‘I’d better get inside.’

  ‘No!’ She grabbed his arm. ‘Please, Ben! Just let me finish.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear about Linda Brogan, Sherry,’ he said coldly.

  ‘You will when you hear what I have to say.’

  Sherry proceeded to tell him the entire events of the day she had met Lisa.

  ‘That is bullshit!’ Ben exploded when she finished. ‘I can’t believe you were sucked in by her! Can you hear what you’re saying?’ He leapt up from the bench.

  Sherry grabbed his arm again. ‘Ben, listen to me! I know how crazy it sounds! Doesn’t it tell you something if she convinced me? She’s Lisa, Ben! If you’d just meet her, I know you’d believe her too!’

  He shook her hand off. ‘What’s got into you, Sher? I miss Lisa every day. But you can’t bring her back from the dead! She’s gone! She’s in a hole at the Schnapper Rock Road cemetery,’ he cried brutally.

  ‘Her body might be!’ Sherry argued stubbornly. ‘But her soul came back! She got sent back, Ben!’

  ‘What the fuck have you been drinking?’ Ben snarled, looking surprisingly big and intimidating. Sherry blinked. She had never seen Ben in a real rage before. Her soft little brother wasn’t so soft after all.

  ‘Beeennn!’ Brenda called impatiently from the deck. ‘We want to talk about the wedding arrangements. Are you coming in?’

  ‘Yeah! Coming!’

  ‘Just ask Brenda what happened in the two-dollar shop a few days before your birthday, Ben! I dare you!’ Sherry cried desperately. ‘Ask her about the woman with the broken leg who told her off for buying your birthday presents there!’

  ‘Shut up, Sherry! That’s old news from last year!’

  ‘No, it’s not! Brenda tried to pull the same trick again this year, but Lisa saw her and followed her into the shop and reminded her she’d warned her about pulling a stunt like that last year, Ben!’

  Ben hesitated. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Ask Brenda.’

  He turned away. ‘No. I won’t.’

  ‘How did Linda Brogan know what happened last year, Ben?’ Sherry shouted after him. ‘Because I sure as hell didn’t tell her!’

  She watched helplessly as Ben stalked away from her and up the wide stairs leading onto the deck, his thick-soled boat shoes thumping aggressively on the wooden boards. Brenda immediately stuck herself to his side like a sink plunger.

  Together they walked into the house.

  Sherry sat on the bench, shaking with fury and trying to get a hold of herself.

  Who would have guessed Ben would be such a hard nut to crack? Everybody would automatically point the finger at her when it came to naming the stubborn, cynical member of the family.

  Brian eventually came out to find her.

  He sat down beside Sherry on the bench. ‘Your mum said she thought you and Ben had been fighting.’

  Sherry shrugged, not trusting herself to speak.

  ‘There’s no point pretending you haven’t. Ben walked in with a face like a slapped arse.’

  Sherry smiled. It was one of her father’s favourite sayings.

  Brian reached out a rough, calloused hand and stroked her hair. ‘What’s the matter, love?’

  She sniffed and shook her head before turning and startling her father by burying her face in his shoulder. It wasn’t like Sherry to show any sign of vulnerability, to reach out for comfort. Brian’s arms closed about her. ‘I know, love, I know,’ he said softly, still stroking her hair.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you remember the woman who came to the plant centre the day Ray went off the deep end?’

  ‘The one he swore at?’

  Sherry nodded against his shoulder.

  ‘Yes, I know who you mean,’ Brian said. ‘The one with the broken leg. She’s not much of a gardener
. She keeps bringing diseased plants to me for advice on how to save them.’

  Sherry sat bolt upright. ‘Does she now?’ she said tartly.

  ‘Mmm.’ Brian nodded and she could hear the smile in his voice. ‘She reminds me a bit of you. Pretty and same colouring.’

  Sherry was struck by how ironic the observation was. Her father was right. She’d never thought about it until now, but Lisa looked more like her sister as she was now than she had in her own body.

  ‘Why?’ Brian was asking. ‘Do you know her? I meant to ask you but got sidetracked by the business with Ray. You seemed to have a lot to talk about.’

  Sherry arched a brow. ‘Oh, we sure did,’ she said wryly.

  ‘Is she alright? I mean about what happened?’ he asked, referring to the incident with Ray. ‘I didn’t feel comfortable bringing it up.’

  ‘Yes. She’s alright.’

  ‘Is she a friend of yours?’

  Sherry wished she could tell her father the truth. ‘Yes, she’s a friend.’

  Jill stuck her head out the ranchslider. ‘Brian!’

  ‘Oops! They’re calling for reinforcements,’ Brian said dryly.

  Sherry scowled when she remembered the Buckners were still inside. ‘How bad is it?’

  ‘Well when I left, Denny was talking about a wedding he went to where they ran out of food at the reception and the guests had a whip-round and went to the nearest KFC to fill the gap.’

  ‘Oh, Christ!’ Sherry muttered. ‘Tell me if they’d started on the bridesmaids’ dresses.’

  ‘Ray’s offered to make them to save money. Brenda said something about green satin.’

  ‘Nooo! Nooo!’ Sherry wailed. ‘It’s not fair!’

  ‘There’s still a while before we get to July,’ Brian remarked cryptically.

  Sherry narrowed her gaze at the shape of his face. It was the closest she’d ever heard either of her parents come to admitting they weren’t too crazy about Ben’s fiancée. ‘We have to stop him, Dad. He’s going to make the biggest mistake of his life if he marries Brenda.’

  ‘We can’t interfere, Sherry. It’s not our choice.’ Brian got to his feet, pulling Sherry up with him.

  ‘But Dad!’ she insisted. ‘He’ll eventually share our genes with that family! They’ll have babies with bri-nylon baby-gros! Toddlers with polyester short sets! It won’t matter if they turn out as nice-looking as Ben. Will you honestly want to have a Grandad’s Brag Book with photos of grandchildren dressed by Brenda and Raylene?’

  Brian chuckled and Sherry smiled. It was the first time she’d heard him laugh since Lisa had died. ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Although I have to admit that the Buckners wouldn’t exactly be top of my list if I was looking to graft my family tree.’

  Sherry laughed.

  Trust her father to put it so well.

  20

  Dan didn’t doubt Lisa’s sincerity. He was certain she believed every word she said. Hell, it would certainly explain a lot of the bizarre things that had happened since she’d woken up. But his head told him a different story.

  He suddenly realized how awkward it must have been for her living in the house with a total stranger. And he was a stranger. Not because she had lost her memory, but because she had never set eyes on him before she saw him at the hospital. He felt damned awkward himself. In the past he had gone to great lengths to not cause her any embarrassment because she didn’t know him. But he’d been one hundred per cent certain he knew her. Lisa’s revelations had pulled the rug right out from under his feet.

  It was kind of like being on a never-ending first date. But instead of the flirting and getting-to-know-one-another period, they had gone from zero to ninety and moved in together right after the first drink had been bought. Dan was living with a beautiful woman about whom he knew nothing. He didn’t know what her favourite colour was, what her favourite food was, what music she liked—all the intimate little details dating revealed along the way.

  ‘I’m the one who’s going bonkers,’ he muttered to himself, borrowing one of Lisa’s favourite sayings.

  Whenever Dan recalled the look on her face as he’d unpacked her underwear into her locker on his nightly visits to the hospital, he winced. And when he thought of how often he had casually wandered back and forth through the garage and house dressed only in a pair of Speedos after returning from windsurfing, he groaned. Dan recalled Lisa had nearly dropped the cutlery she had been unloading from the dishwasher the first time she had seen him dressed like that, but he had been so engrossed in taking his wetsuit through to the shower to rinse it that he hadn’t really paid much attention. No wonder she had been so insistent she didn’t need any help picking up the knives and forks from the kitchen floor.

  Ah, shit. He needed to take control of the situation, to make some sense of it all. So Dan did what he had been trained to do. He researched the facts.

  Lisa had mentioned she’d had surgery on her foot as a child. Dan asked her about it. She answered all his questions warily, but it seemed to him she was quite truthful. When he had a spare moment at the hospital he called the medical-records department and asked how far the archives went back. Dan knew what he was about to do was unethical, but he was desperate.

  ‘We keep medical records for about twenty-five years, Mr Brogan,’ the clerk told him.

  ‘Then what happens to them?’

  ‘They’re destroyed or, if you’re lucky, they might have been transferred onto microfilm.’

  ‘Would you mind taking a look for me?’

  ‘Sure, Mr Brogan. No worries.’

  The clerk had called Dan back later in the morning. ‘Boy, were you lucky! Did you realize Lisa Jackson is deceased? The notes would have been destroyed if it weren’t for the fact a coroner’s case has been called and they might need them for reference.’

  Dan felt unnerved by the casual way the woman spoke about Lisa Jackson’s death. He managed to thank her without revealing how much her reply had distressed him. He didn’t understand it himself. He still wasn’t even sure who the hell Lisa Jackson was, apart from the fact she was the woman who had died in the other car involved in Linda’s accident.

  Lisa had said she was twenty-seven when the accident happened. Dan knew her date of birth. She said she had been born at National Women’s Hospital almost two months’ premature. She had lived her entire life at the same house in Browns Bay.

  Dan got lucky.

  Lisa Louise Jackson’s medical records went right back to the date of her birth which was 22 February, just as she had said. There were two thick yellow folders of ink-filled notes held together with a thick elastic band. A bright yellow Post-It note was tucked under the band upon which somebody had written: Deceased 24 March. Coroner’s Case.

  Dan stared at the date and shivered. He felt like somebody had walked over his grave.

  The records told the story of a baby girl born almost two months premature. She was the second child of Jill and Brian Jackson of Beach Road in Browns Bay. She had one older sibling who was also a girl. The baby spent many weeks in the neonatal and special baby care units at National Women’s Hospital before being released home weighing five and a half pounds. There were brief mentions of a left club-foot deformity but it was way down the list of concerns in those early months. She had returned to hospital for surgery and plaster casts and had ongoing physiotherapy until she was four years old. Her good nature was often mentioned. In some pain last night. Responded well to change in analgesia. Woke up smiling as usual this morning. Happy little girl.

  Dan came across a child’s painting showing the usual stick figures, one of which had one big, fat leg and one skinny one and a big smile on the stick figure’s face. Somebody had written across the top in black felt-tip: To Mr Wrigley from Lisa Jackson aged three and three quarters. Wrigley had been the surgeon caring for Lisa. A childish hand had managed a backwards L and an S with some lines on either side. A first attempt at writing her name.

  Dan felt
his heart contract. He smoothed his finger across the wobbly writing before folding it up and putting it away in his briefcase. The earlier notes ended when Lisa was seen for the last time in the out-patients’ department. She was thriving and enjoying school and there was now a third child in the family, a brother who was two years younger. Dan felt the familiar prickling begin in his scalp. The boy’s name wasn’t mentioned, but he just knew it would be Ben.

  Dan leaned back in his chair, cupping his head in the palms of his hands, and closed his eyes. It was dark outside and he usually would have been home long ago. He should phone Lisa and tell her not to worry, but she never complained or questioned his erratic schedule. Dan knew she didn’t think she had any right to. The thought depressed the hell out of him.

  Bracing his elbows on his desk, he rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. He had been in surgery until one o’clock and then on a ward round until he was called down to the children’s emergency department over a child involved in a car accident with hip and leg injuries. That had meant another stint in theatre that hadn’t ended until seven o’clock. Dan knew he really should go home but, tired as he was, he couldn’t tear himself away from the story of Lisa Jackson. It was like peeling layers away from an onion. He was intrigued and drawn to this cheerful, brave little girl who had fought the odds and survived. The love and commitment of her parents came through the surgeon’s sterile notes. But the notes ended at age five and a half.

  He frowned. Hadn’t Lisa said she was being treated for endometriosis?

  Turning to his computer, Dan keyed in her National Health Index number and began a search. In a matter of minutes, Lisa’s name appeared on the screen along with her most recent medical history. Dan scrolled quickly past the last entry of her admission on 24 March and the time of her death. It made his skin crawl.

  He searched further back and grunted when Janice Millar’s name came up as the treating physician. He couldn’t believe the coincidence: Jack Millar’s wife had been Lisa’s gynaecologist. Dan stiffened when he saw that Lisa’s occupation was listed as primary-school teacher.

 

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