by Anne Buist
This time she let him tie her up; the brass bed seemed to ask for it, and she was curious to know how inventive he was. She was confident she could escape the ties if she wanted to. So why not lie back and enjoy?
She was naked as she watched him strip, slowly, eyes locked with hers. She imagined him debating exactly what he wanted to do with her and allowed herself to give in to it: the idea of her pleasure being in his hands. She had never allowed anyone, not even Tom, this much power. She didn’t count Eoin, a lifetime of experience ago.
He didn’t abuse the trust. She’d known instinctively he wouldn’t. He lingered briefly over the tattoo that wrapped around her arm, the one she’d left to remind herself that when she was high she did really stupid things, but Liam knew better than to ask about it. His smile conveyed desire, but also made her want to believe that his need was and would only ever be for her. In her moment of climax her eyes were locked on his, and the vulnerability provided a connection she had never experienced before.
The experience for him must have been one of absolute power. For her it was a realisation that an abdication of responsibility contained the potential for ecstasy. And the feeling of safety she hadn’t even realised was missing.
She felt good and wanted to hold onto her sense of peace without the dullness induced by medication; she hadn’t taken her meds the previous night, in anticipation. And she wasn’t going to let them take the feeling away now.
Chapter 15
Natalie tried to organise her thoughts as she opened up the throttle on her bike. After leaving Welbury early, she had stayed on the ring road rather than heading home and turned northwest through the newer suburbs with cheap prefab housing estates. Taking the exit onto the long road to the prison, Natalie hoped there were no speed cameras. The speedo hit one sixty and it felt like she was barely moving. It would be just a one-off. Declan didn’t need to know. Maybe she’d tell him afterwards and get absolution.
The first impression of Dame Phyllis Frost Centre was of well-tended garden beds and neat concrete paths, but beyond their formal cheer, it was bleak. Even the spindly gum trees looked as though they were struggling to make it. She tried to concentrate but her thoughts were leapfrogging over each other as though in a race to the finish. Declan kept popping into her mind and she shoved him aside. One visit to see Amber wouldn’t hurt anyone, and anyway he’d never know. Amber would be released and her recovery could really start. Her family would welcome her back and, while she would never be the innocent young girl who had married Travis, she would heal.
There was the usual rigmarole getting through security.
‘You’re not on our list.’ Fake smile from the big-boned one. ‘Sorry.’
‘Fuck you,’ she muttered.
‘What was that?’
‘I said you must be able to find it. I’m a psychiatrist.’
‘Really? Hear that Jen? We’ve got ourselves a psychiatrist here. Very impressive.’ From the other side of the glass the two women crossed their arms and smirked. Natalie felt like strangling them. Might have even given it a go if the cowards hadn’t been protected.
‘I need to get in. Ask Lucia.’
‘Lucia? Do you know a Lucia, Jen?’
‘Actress, isn’t there, called Lucia, or is that Lucy?’
Fuck. Her mind was moving at such a pace now she felt she was watching four television stations at once. It was starting to shoot coloured signals in the guards’ direction. Like laser beams. Excellent, that should do it. She smiled and let them laugh, watching all the while as their brains started to fragment into green and gold filaments. Ten minutes later—silence from her and laughter that sounded like thunder from them—they let her through. She didn’t suppose there was much hope for them. Still, they weren’t her problem. Amber was. She shook her head, tried to block the barrage of thoughts. Later, when there was time to consider the cosmos.
Amber had put on a little weight and it suited her, though her anguished look took Natalie back to when they first met. They had the visiting area to themselves, sitting on fixed plastic chairs in the corner furthest from the wardens.
‘Hi, fancy seeing you here. Mind if I drop in?’
‘You came!’ Amber smiled. ‘I was hoping the next time I saw you it would be in your office.’
‘Yes, soon.’ Natalie tried to focus on Amber. Soon, tune, bloom. Concentrate. ‘You’ll be coming up for parole, there’s a hearing, you need to be careful, Lucia tells me there isn’t any reason for you not to be approved. You don’t want to mess it up again, got to think of yourself for once and of course your family and everything they’ve been through.’
Was she talking too fast?
‘Did your mother tell you about Chloe?’ said Natalie, deliberately spacing out her words.
Amber shook her head. ‘No, one of the other girls told me.’
One of the girls. Natalie nodded, Liam’s words about the paedophile ring were suddenly in her ears and she forgot why she was there.
‘It’s tough being here. I guess you hear horrendous stories.’
Amber nodded, taking a breath. ‘Enough to…well I didn’t realise how sheltered I was.’
‘The women here tend to come from disturbed backgrounds.’
‘Yes.’
‘Have any of them ever talked to you about their abuse as children? Seems like there’s some shithead men enticing girls with pink bunny rabbits. Pink of course. Little girls like pink.’ Shit. Where had that come from? Hadn’t she told Liam there was no way she’d ask around for him? Still, she couldn’t see how it would hurt.
Amber looked a little startled, then shook her head. ‘I’m kept separate from them most of the time. Except for other women with charges like mine. Tiphanie…she won’t end up here will she?’
‘You need to focus on yourself.’ Focus, hocus pocus. No, just focus, yes, she needed to as well. ‘There isn’t anything you can do for her.’
Amber didn’t seem to have heard her. ‘Mum says that the papers only mentioned me briefly, and not my name.’ Amber blushed. ‘Oh that was awful. I didn’t mean to be. It’s far worse for poor Tiphanie.’
‘Do you know Tiphanie?’
‘Oh no, no…it’s just…’
‘You’ve been there.’
‘Thanks,’ said Amber. ‘My family…’ She looked down and twisted her tissue around in her lap. ‘It’s awful. I will never forget Bella-Kaye.’ She looked up. There were tears in her eyes. ‘I think of her all the time, on her birthday, Mothers’ Day, the day—’ She took a breath and looked hard at Natalie. ‘I can’t bear the thought another child died because—’ She started crying.
Natalie put her hand over Amber’s. ‘You couldn’t have prevented whatever happened to Chloe. Do you really think Tiphanie would have listened to you? She would have been defensive, never admitted she’d made a mistake. Believe me.’
Amber gave a faint smile.
‘People are responsible for their own decisions,’ said Natalie. ‘You suffered for your mistakes. Maybe Tiphanie will have to for hers.’ Her mind was heading her in another direction. Focus.
Amber continued to pull at the tissue. It was soon in shreds in her
hands.
‘I know…’
‘What living with Travis was like.’
Amber nodded. ‘There were things I could never bring myself to tell you.’
Natalie felt tiny icicles sprouting from her skin. She rubbed her arms, bemused that her skin didn’t look any different. She forced a smile and nodded. Amber’s mind was still closed to her. No green and gold filaments for her; must be just prison wardens’ day for brain disintegration.
‘I was so ashamed,’ said Amber.
‘You were also very confused.’
‘Yes.’
Natalie looked at her critically and tried to define what was different but couldn’t put her finger on it. More self-assured perhaps, even in the current circumstances? Her fingernails cut into her palm as she tried to listen and make sense of what Amber was saying.
‘I think back and remember…how it felt and things he said.’
‘And…?’
Amber bit her lip, looking down. ‘He…he wanted me to do it.’
For a moment this meant nothing to Natalie other than a confirmation of what she had come to realise a year earlier; Travis was a controlling bastard. Then, as the silence reached out and encompassed her, Natalie knew for certain that this was something she had known, that it was part of the couple’s dynamic but not something she had ever interpreted to her patient.
‘How did you know that?’
‘He told me,’ said Amber, her voice strangely robotic. ‘He said to me that one of us had to die.’
In the back of Natalie’s mind a thought seemed to form words without her even knowing what was coming. ‘Tell your mother that?’
Amber stiffened. ‘No, I never told her anything.’
Thoughts seemed to ricochet inside her head. ‘I heard about your father. I’m so sorry.’ Natalie closed her eyes, fingernails carving out deeper furrows in her palm.
Amber sniffed. Natalie opened her eyes to see Amber was crying, large tears rolling down one cheek. ‘I never got to see him.’
‘I guess it all happened too fast for your lawyer to get you to the hospital.’
Amber nodded, took a breath. ‘Wouldn’t have mattered. He never woke up.’
‘After the second attack.’
‘There was only one. Massive. They were in town and the ambulance got there real quick but he never came out of the coma.’
Amber’s words were reverberating in her head like ice cubes in a blender. Natalie felt she was drowning in the mix; so much so she almost forgot that she had intended to make the most of the visit and see Jessie’s partner, Hannah. Older than Jessie, probably in her late twenties or early thirties, Hannah looked unexpectedly wholesome with only a hint of mascara and hair in plaits. She even had a sense of humour; shrugging good-naturedly when Natalie told her that no, she was not going to prescribe her anything.
‘Had to give it a try. Look after Jessie won’t you? She isn’t as tough as she makes out.’
‘I figured that.’
‘Doubt she’s got anywhere close to telling it all to you. Do you know about her family?’
‘Some.’ There were lights shimmering on the edge of the building. What did they signify?
‘She has shocking nightmares she can’t make sense of,’ said Hannah. ‘But I can tell you, they happened. Something like them anyway.’
‘How do you know?’ Natalie was distracted. What were those lights? There was a subtle blue hue to them. What did blue mean?
‘Too weird for a kid to think up; she’s been having the same dreams for years.’
There was an awkward pause before Natalie realised Hannah was expecting another question. ‘Um. Can you tell me about her stepmother and stepbrother?’
‘She’s got no time for the wicked witch, but Jay’s always looked out for her I guess. I’ve only met him once. He was cool about her being gay. More than I can say for my family. I don’t think he was big on me using. But he was there supporting Jessie straight after I got nicked.’
Natalie watched Hannah’s eyes. They were trying to tell her something. About the cosmos or was about Jessie? Hannah was right; Jessie didn’t trust her enough to share the really scary stuff with her. ‘Other women in here have that sort of background?’
Hannah looked at her suspiciously. Liam owed her big time.
‘Not asking you to rat,’ said Natalie. ‘Just wondering if anyone here talks about being abused. Seems like there’s been a paedophile network targeting girls in Melbourne for years. They use pink bunny rabbits.’
Hannah dropped her cigarette butt and ground it on the cement. One of the wardens banged the window. Why didn’t this one look like her head was going to explode? Was she a plant? Natalie felt on edge, unable to sit still. Hannah picked the butt up and flicked it onto the nearby bin. ‘Last stuffed toy I heard about was for one of the kids here with their mum. Had dope in it. Screws found it and didn’t even give the teddy back.’
‘So how about you? Another five years isn’t it?’ Natalie snuck a look at the wardens. No green filaments. That must mean something. She’d have to wait for the cosmos to disclose.
Hannah shrugged. ‘Less now. I’ll manage. No choice really.’
‘Do you think Jessie will be there for you?’
‘I’d like her to be but I don’t expect it. No one else ever has been. Do you think we could be parents, me and Jessie?’ she asked suddenly.
‘Stranger things have happened,’ said Natalie. She giggled. Like green and gold brain fragmentation. Maybe she should write it up. It could make her famous. ‘So long as you can find a donor.’
‘That’s the easy bit,’ said Hannah, shrugging.
‘So is there a hard bit?’ More giggles.
‘Not having the kid turn out like us,’ said Hannah. ‘I mean not fucked up.’
‘I’d refer you to a good parenting program.’ Natalie had to leave. ‘Take it easy Hannah,’ she said, and by way of farewell, added, ‘I’ll do my best with Jessie; she’s trying hard.’
As she was dressing for Shaun’s wedding band gig—not in fact a wedding but some corporate function—she knew that this was meant to be. Of course it was. The cosmos had a reason for everything. She’d agreed to have Tom pick her up because drinking didn’t go well with a motorbike. Nor did a dress. She refused to do conservative, but she felt she owed it to Shaun to wear a dress. More goth than business world—black and red leather corset, with a tulle and lace skirt and fingerless gloves—but still. She’d probably overdone the makeup. She didn’t normally drink much when she was working but tonight the alcohol was going to be essential to cope with some of the awful songs Shaun would expect her to sing.
When they arrived at the Grand Hyatt, rather than following Tom to where the band was setting up, she intercepted the drink waiter who was holding a tray of champagne in long-stemmed glasses for the first of the guests. It was a twenties theme. Men were in standard dinner suits with the odd cravat or scarf channelling Scott Fitzgerald. The women were shimmering in jewelled and feathered flapper outfits with headbands and unlit cocktail cigarettes in holders.
‘I
don’t think we’ve met.’ A woman smiled tightly at Natalie as she took a glass.
‘No, we haven’t.’
The woman, in her late fifties, looked a little startled. ‘I’m Maureen Hoffman.’
Natalie tried not to giggle. This was clearly supposed to mean something to her. ‘Really?’
‘And you would be?’ Maureen was fixated on Natalie’s corset motif but in the dim light it was almost impossible to make out that it said ‘Bite Me’.
Before Natalie could answer, Tom grabbed her elbow and steered her away. ‘We’re the band, Natalie, remember?’
‘Just chatting.’ Natalie waved her hands, forgetting that she had champagne in one. A suited man ducked.
Tom dragged her over to the band.
‘Please tell me I don’t have to do “I Will Survive”.’
‘They always like it.’
Natalie grimaced, her concentration wandering. There was a lot of glitter in the air. It was congregating around a group of people in their forties. While Tom was busy with his drums, she wandered over to the table. There was a spare seat and she sat down.
‘I’m Natalie,’ she said to a man with a scarlet scarf.
‘Boris,’ he said, introducing his partner, a woman with a black bob whose name Natalie didn’t catch. ‘I don’t know anyone here.’
‘Me neither,’ said Natalie. Boris’s work involved something to do with spark plugs.
‘Don’t you find it boring?’
‘No,’ said Boris.
‘Bet your wife does. She’s probably on the lookout for someone more prestigious. Women are like that; they want to trade up.’
A waiter placed an entrée on the mat in front of her. It was something strangely stacked to look artistic and she wasn’t entirely sure if it was all edible. The other women at the table seemed impressed. Getting excited about food stacks was not normally Natalie’s thing but this one captured her imagination. She started building it higher with the bread and butter container, wondering if the flowers in the table decoration might work too. No one would mind, surely.