by Ros Baxter
Lou nodded, and a creeping blush stole over her cheeks. ‘What was she on?’
The doctor took the pencil out of her mouth and flicked back and forth again. ‘Oxycodone. Pretty standard prescription synthetic opiate.’
Lou frowned.
‘A painkiller,’ the doctor explained, running her pencil along the page. ‘And …’ She stretched the word out, running her pencil along the page. ‘Valium, and Xanax.’ She grimaced. ‘Not a great cocktail but it was the painkiller she seems to have OD’d on this time.’
‘I didn’t even know she was on painkillers,’ Lou said, her tummy squeezing into a tight ball.
‘Hmm. Well, it’s over-prescribed of course, but with her condition, completely warranted.’ She chewed the pencil again, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling. ‘Course, I always say if you have that level of pain, you’re probably really better off with weed.’
Lou gasped, and the doctor misread her reaction.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, honey,’ she said, frowning. ‘I just meant, you know, especially if you’re not averse to smoking. Much safer, less likely to get the mix wrong.’
‘No, it’s not that. I …’ Lou’s head seemed to be filled with cotton wool. ‘I don’t care what she takes, I just …’
The doctor kept frowning at Lou, chewing her pencil. Then her brow cleared and she covered her mouth. ‘Oh dear. You don’t know, do you?’ She stood from the little stool and moved over to take the seat next to Lou and pick up her hand. The doctor’s hand was small and warm, and she squeezed Lou’s hard. ‘She didn’t tell you? I assumed, because you were the medical contact …’
Lou shook her head. ‘What is it?’
The doctor cleared her throat. ‘Cancer,’ she said softly. ‘Of the liver.’
‘Is it treatable?’ Lou glanced over at her mother on the bed, a beam of sunlight catching her at the right angle and making her look thirty instead of fifty-eight. A memory assaulted Lou: her mother, jumping on the trampoline with her, thirty years earlier. Lou had held her hand over her eyes to look up into the sun where her mother was bouncing higher and higher, her long blonde curls streaming out around her, making her look like some kind of ancient goddess. Skye had been laughing and daring Lou to keep up with her. Lou was seven, and didn’t like the way the bouncing made the trampoline shake uncontrollably. She had sat down, spreading herself low to anchor her body to the safety of the trampoline’s skin, while her mother bounced on, higher and harder, laughing and squealing. Lou knew she should get off, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from her brave, wild mother, bouncing right into the sun. She wanted to be a part of the moment, even if she was so terrified she could barely move.
‘Liver cancer,’ Lou repeated, her words barely audible. ‘But I didn’t know.’ She frowned. ‘I’ve been advised, the other times. I’ve … sorted things out. Bills. Home help …’ Her voice trailed off.
‘All from Sydney?’ The doctor was watching Lou carefully.
Lou nodded. There was so much she didn’t know. About Bo Westin, and the pills, and the cancer. Lou knew exactly why she didn’t know. Sharni came home to this godforsaken town – sometimes. At least more than Lou did, which was never. But she and Sharni had rules so strong, so damned watertight, they didn’t even have to speak them, and the cardinal rule was this: they never, ever spoke about Stone Mountain.
Everything Lou needed to know, she knew.
Every invoice she needed to pay, she paid.
She didn’t need the colour and movement, the gossip.
Because there was only one thing, one moment, she would ever really remember about Stone Mountain.
She thought about Gage Westin. Okay, maybe two.
Lou scrunched all of her hurt and fury and frustration up into a tiny ball and pushed it down hard, into the place where it lived. She looked at the doctor with no tears in her eyes. ‘What’s the treatment?’ The doctor looked at her so blankly she felt obliged to add, ‘Whatever it is, I can pay.’
Dr O’Brien smiled gently and patted her hand. ‘Oh Lou, love,’ she said. ‘I think you need to talk to your mum. I think last time I spoke to her she said something like …’ The doctor paused, concentrating, then did such an excellent impression of Skye’s cheeky twang that Lou almost felt her transform into her wild, bosomy mother. ‘“I’ll be fucked five ways from sideways if I’ll let them zap me full of shite in the name of a cure.” ’
Lou stared at her. ‘She doesn’t want treatment?’
‘To be fair, lovely,’ the doctor said, patting Lou’s hand soothingly again, ‘the success rates with this one are very low. It’s longevity only. And your mum read up on it. This wasn’t some spur of the moment thing. She really does understand what it would cost her.’ Dr O’Brien swallowed, the determined smile slipping a little as she did. ‘And how little it might offer.’
Hot, hard panic welled in Lou’s tummy but rapidly pushed through her oesophagus and into her mouth, where it sat tasting like sour cherries and warm beer and pressing on the back of her teeth. It just wasn’t possible. People like her mum didn’t get cancer. Lou knew exactly enough of life to know that the good absolutely died young. She’d been handling estates, divorces, mergers and acquisitions for fifteen years. She knew that shitty things happened to good people, and bad people quite frequently not only got away with murder, but got really, really rich in the process as well. And her mother was … Well, how did one explain Skye Samuels? To many in the town, she was a lovable disaster. To others, she was a witch. To Lou, she had always been her absolute compass; her north and south, her sunrise and set. All through her childhood, Lou had fought hard to stay by Skye’s side, basking in her sunlight, always excusing her, always forgiving her. As starstruck then as her father still plainly was now, even thirty-five years after Skye Samuels had left him eating her dust. Lou had been Mummy’s best girl.
Until the scales had fallen from her eyes so viciously and completely that all she could do was run: from the destructive force of her; from the fear that she would be like her, repeat her mistakes; run and run until she found somewhere so big and so anonymous she could rest awhile and forget who she was, who she would always be.
Skye Samuels’ daughter.
Only Lou knew the truth about Skye. Only Lou knew how much Skye deserved to be lying in that bed, with that angry, vengeful thing eating her up from the inside. It should feel like divine providence. But it didn’t.
The thought of being liberated from this woman to whom she was tied, even though she wanted nothing to do with her or this place, should have filled Lou with relief, not the sick, creeping panic she felt now. While Skye was alive, she didn’t have to think about her. She just was what she was, and Lou did what she did – took care of her, at a distance. But if Skye was dying, everything would be different. It upped the ante; it meant Lou had to decide. She couldn’t just keep putting it all off, hoping it might go away; hoping that she might wake up one day and have a nice, normal family in place of this dysfunctional, distressing relationship. A family like Sharni’s, who hassled and misunderstood her, but still lived every moment thinking only of her and her wellbeing.
Lou was vaguely conscious she was saying some words to the doctor, assuring her that yes, she would come by, and yes, they would talk some more. Why the hell would this nice, kind, good woman not mercifully fuck off and leave Lou to try to digest the shedload of crap she had just dumped on her?
Finally, blessedly, the doctor leaned over and squeezed her hand. ‘I’ll be off then, Louise,’ she said. ‘Whatever you do, don’t eat the food in the cafeteria.’ She winked and laughed, and it wasn’t what you might expect from this thin-faced, grey-bunned doctor. It was rich and full, a laugh you would expect from a drunken Irishwoman, intent on stealing your virtue and bewitching your good sense. Her blue eyes twinkled and Lou wondered for a brief, mad second if she was some kind of selkie, inhabiting the body of a moderate, sensibly dressed, medical woman.
Then she was gone, and Lou was left starin
g at the almost-stranger in the narrow bed. Lou leaned close and listened to her mother breathing. It was deep and regular. Nothing in it gave away that she was poisoned inside. Lou smoothed Skye’s hair back carefully on the thin pillow. Was she dreaming? And if she was, was it the kind of dream that had haunted Lou for so long? That still, to this day, could sometimes make her wake, slick and panting, hot and sticky with what ifs and if onlys?
As Lou watched, Skye’s eyes started to move. They opened a little, affording a miserly peep of the wide blue forever that could so easily trap unwary players. Skye moaned something in her semi-roused state and rolled a little in the bed. Then her eyes flickered open a little more, outrageous black lashes fluttering against tanned cheeks.
Finally, the eyes stayed open, focusing slowly, sweeping the room before coming to rest on Lou. ‘Louella?’ Her voice was low and croaky, and Lou offered her some water.
‘Louise,’ she automatically corrected, shifting to hold her mother up so she could take a sip.
Her mother’s eyes narrowed as that grin stole across her face. ‘I always wished I’d called you Louella. It was your father who –’
‘– settled on Louise,’ Lou finished for her.
Skye finished sipping and lay back on the pillow. She closed her eyes for a few long seconds, then opened them again and stared hard at Lou. ‘I’m so damned glad I finally burned that fuckin’ house down,’ she growled. ‘I shoulda done it years ago.’
Lou pressed her fingernails into her palms and tried to imagine the conversations other people – normal people – had with each other at this fork in the road. Tearful, nostalgic conversations; or conversations railing at the gods or fate or whichever sucky omnipotent force had rained down its own variety of hell on unsuspecting victims; or maybe even practical, upbeat conversations about next steps – treatment, logistics, family.
And then there was them: Lou and Skye. And denial was in their blood. After all, it had kept them alive this long.
‘So, how’s the food?’ Lou looked hard at Skye, straight into those deep blue eyes and dared her to continue with the ‘shoulda done it years ago’ conversation.
Skye lifted herself a little in her bed, and Lou reached forwards to fluff her pillows. Skye motioned at the machines. ‘Just dandy,’ she drawled. ‘Tastes like the same drugs they give you every time you OD.’ She pursed her lips like she was rolling something around her mouth. ‘’Cept maybe with a little extra something.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘I got it. A little splash of judgemental daughter.’
‘Might not be a bad idea to let up on the OD’ing then, huh?’ Lou would not be cowed. ‘If the fix tastes so bad.’
Skye considered Lou in her floral dress. ‘You look like shit, honey,’ she said finally, smiling sympathetically the way truly beautiful people always do for the less favoured by the gods. ‘Been so long, and I never expected you to look like this.’
Lou gave her a small, vicious smile. ‘I looked better last night,’ she said, like the words didn’t hurt at all. ‘Before the reunion, and before my mother burned her house down and got herself carted off to hospital. Again.’
Skye looked out the window as though this was all some fascinating daydream. She always managed to look like that, like life was just on the edge of delivering rainbows, and she could see it, out of the corner of her eye, just around the next rise. Then she turned back to Lou with a frown; the same small, confused frown she had always reserved for her small, confusing, disappointing, terribly straight daughter. ‘So what’s the plan?’
Lou felt like they were replaying some clichéd script; some B-grade Hollywood made-for-TV crap that they’d both seen one too many times. How often had her mother said that, over the phone from Stone Mountain to Sydney, as Lou paid off debt collectors, dealt with insurance assessors, arranged local lawyers and sent in the cops to get rid of the latest drunk?
Watching her mother lying there – sick, dying – something inside Lou snapped. This was her mother’s life, for God’s sake. Her life. Didn’t she have any inkling of what she wanted to do about it being so suddenly, unexpectedly cut short? Lou wanted to reach over and slap her.
‘I don’t know, Skye,’ Lou snapped, folding her hands primly in her lap. ‘What is the plan?’
Skye narrowed her gorgeous blue eyes at her daughter. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘isn’t that your department? I mean, I don’t have anywhere to live.’ She bit one nail in a gesture that should have looked small and confused but somehow came off sweet and sexy.
‘I dunno, Skye,’ Lou repeated quietly. ‘Where will you live?’
Skye stuck out her bottom lip like a child being denied a favourite toy. ‘I got plenty of places to go,’ she huffed, turning her face away from Lou and the window and towards the curtain.
Lou knew she couldn’t just get up and walk out, leave her mother and the cast of extras to deal with this latest mess, but she also knew she couldn’t keep going the way she always had. This was their pattern: Skye messing up, Lou sweeping in to fix things, albeit from a distance. And if she sometimes wondered if her mother did these things just to keep in touch with her, well she tried not to think too hard on it. Not for just now. She would think about all that one day – the same day she would stop and actually process what had happened twenty years ago.
But Lou was suddenly struck by the notion that there was no ‘one day’ any more. There was no possible future where things would somehow magically be worked out, not any more. Dr O’Brien had made that very clear. Lou had the oddest feeling that she had been brought back to this place especially for this moment; that Sharni’s cry for help as she managed the fallout of her crappy marriage was just the karmic smokescreen for a bigger life lesson.
Lou was being brought home, finally, to face the music.
Chapter
3
Mamma mia
The curtain parted and Sharni and Gage stepped through. Sharni looked remarkably peachy; her cheek was still dark with the sins of the night before, but the rest of her skin had returned to its usual country-girl glow, as though she was ready to ride a bronco bareback or take centre stage at a debutante ball, as she settled in beside Lou. Coffee was a remarkable drug.
Gage was even more irritatingly together. He strode into the little space, handed Lou a coffee, dropped a quick kiss on Skye’s upturned cheek and sat in the chair closest to the bed. ‘How you feeling, firecracker?’ he said, gesturing to the coffee. ‘Sorry, Edie told me no stimulants for you; I wasn’t being mean.’ He gave Lou’s mum a smile that would have melted the heart of a snow witch, full of genuine concern and clear affection. But Lou’s heart must have been made of pure glacier, because all she wanted to do as she saw the tender exchange was scream a litany of crimes at her mother so the man who had kissed her so comprehensively the night before could hear all about them.
Skye pouted and Lou watched her turn on her whole routine for Gage. She nodded bravely as big blue eyes filled with tears and her hand rose up to extract a tissue delicately from the box on the bedside table. The vulnerable eye-wiping routine that ensued was so choreographed it belonged in Gone with the Wind. Lou reminded herself that while Gage had attended very little school, he was not stupid, and would never fall for such a blatant doing-over. But strangely, as she watched, he seemed to dissolve on the spot. He dragged his chair closer and patted Skye’s hair, changing his voice from its usual concise, gravelly style, to all honey and warmth. ‘Hey now, sweetie, I’m sure it’s all going to be okay. Lou Lou’s here now, and you know there was never any problem Lou couldn’t fix. And we’re here too. Me and …’ He paused and swallowed hard. ‘And Dad. We’ll see you right.’ He ran his hands through his hair. ‘If you need a place to stay while you get things sorted, well, you know we’ll happily put you up. Plenty of room at home.’
Skye made a strangled noise of appreciation low in her throat that almost made Lou vomit, but that seemed to be just the response Gage was after. Lou elbowed Sharni hard in the side. She wasn’t loo
king for any particular action from Sharni, just a way to vent her frustration.
But Sharni jumped to attention. ‘Well, great to see you’re up and about, Mrs Samuels,’ she said. ‘I might take Lou to get some food while we plan next steps, hey? I think at this point she needs to eat.’ Sharni dragged Lou to her feet and took her arm. ‘Anything we can get you?’ She shot Skye a sweet look, but the air was thick with her true intent.
And Skye wasn’t buying. ‘No thank you, Sharni,’ she sniffed. ‘I think I just need some rest.’ She grabbed for Gage’s muscular forearm. ‘Thank you, sweetheart, for your concern and your kind words. You and your dear father have been so wonderful to me these last few months.’ She turned doleful eyes on Lou and Sharni, and the implication was lost on neither of them.
Gage stood. Every time he got vertical, Lou was reminded of the sheer size and power of him. She often thought that if she really existed, it was mostly in her brain – the place she had spent most of her childhood retreating to; the place she lived most of her professional life; the place she ran back to when the world seemed too harsh or too pathetic. Gage, on the other hand, was like intelligent flesh. The beauty and proportion with which he had been constructed; the grace of his stance and gestures; the economy of his movement – it was like watching a master artist do his thing.
‘I’ll take you where you need to go, ladies,’ Gage said.
‘Huh?’ Sharni’s dull response made Lou realise she too had been hypnotised by Gage’s physical wow factor. Lou elbowed her again, just because.
‘Later, Mum,’ she said as sweetly as she could manage as she left the room. ‘I’ll be back once we’ve worked a few things out.’ ‘I can’t,’ Lou said, even more forcefully this time, in case they hadn’t heard her.
‘Why not?’ Gage was leaning against a thick timber post, his back to the wide main street, while Lou and Sharni sprawled on the easy chairs at the low table on the veranda. Crises always brought out the comfort eater in Lou, and today it was Mrs Perrott’s macaroni and cheese and a serving of apple pie that had laid her low. Sharni was lolling around in the afterglow of a particularly nasty-looking Chiko Roll, followed quickly by two serves of steamed pudding with custard.