by Emily Brewin
‘I always said he needed a firm hand.’
Rosie snorts.
‘Lucky Joel is still interested.’ Vera shifts her weight to her other heel.
Rosie glares at her.
‘He’s reformed, you know,’ Vera says, suddenly high and mighty. ‘Janice told me he got work at the dog shelter.’
Reformed. What about the bruises Rosie used to come home with, the ones Vera tutted sadly over while fetching the frozen peas? She said he was no good. But she’d lost her power over Rosie years before. Rosie stopped coming home after that. The house still had her little girl’s bed in it and her Pearl Jam posters on the wall, but it didn’t hold a place in her heart. Home was nowhere until she had Petey.
The Lego drops. ‘Get out,’ she whispers hotly at Vera.
They stand off until Vera steps back. ‘Fine,’ she says, but the fight’s gone out of her voice and there might be tears in her eyes.
Rosie feels nothing. She waits for Vera to leave then bends down to pick up the Lego car again.
Isobel
THEY’RE BURYING HER MOTHER TODAY and all she wants is to be held. But Marcus is still asleep, hand thrust across his forehead, head turned to the side. He lies right on the edge of the mattress as far from her side as possible.
She sits on the bed, showered and dressed, and gazes at their walk-in wardrobe. At the racks of his ties and tiered rows of her shoes, and wonders how it all got there, all this stuff. The stuff they spent their lives working for, that fills their house. Most of it was purchased with hardly a thought, as if the act of collecting it was more important than the item itself.
She breathes out slowly.
Her parents worked hard too. And what did they have to show for it? Definitely not a wardrobe full of designer clothes. No, they got two highly educated, very successful adult children instead, who didn’t want a bar of them. For a moment, Isobel wonders how they’d all missed the point.
Still, her parents always had each other.
Marcus rolls flat on his back. ‘Hi,’ he says gruffly, opening his eyes.
She smiles weakly, smoothing flat her cream silk blouse.
‘I’m sorry.’ He breathes in sharply and it’s hard to tell what he’s apologising for.
‘We need to pick Dad up in an hour.’
‘Right,’ he says, still gazing at her. ‘I’ll get ready.’
She goes into the bathroom and rummages through the bottom drawer, past the trays of eye shadow and tubes of unopened concealer until she finds the lipstick. The reddest one she owns. She holds it to the light, imagining the bright slice of her mother’s smile, then runs it smoothly across her lips.
The church is a confusion of faces, shadows from her past, albeit greyer and more stooped over. Others she doesn’t know.
Her father stands stiffly in the entrance, like the rest of them, as people pass on their condolences.
‘Lovely lady, Grace,’ an old bloke with a walking stick says, giving her father a firm pat on the arm. ‘Ya couldn’t fault her.’
Lachie smiles thinly at his side, quieter than usual. Mateo keeps an eye on him from a pew nearby, hardly recognisable in a suit of charcoal grey. She wishes briefly he were wearing something more outlandish. Her mother would have loved it.
‘Think I need to sit down.’ Her father walks crookedly towards a seat, a solitary figure despite the crowd.
She tries to take a seat beside him but he waves her away, making her swallow loudly. Marcus stands by the side door as if he might slip through it at any moment and drive away. It wouldn’t shock her if he did.
Mrs Warren wobbles over, holding out her hand. Isobel takes it, papery in her own, and helps her to a chair. The old lady sighs. ‘Feels like I’m at one of these every other week.’ She glances around, eyes quick behind her smudgy spectacles. ‘It used to be parties.’
Isobel glances at Marcus. He’s with her father now, not talking, just standing guard. She blinks hard.
‘You remember, don’t you? The parties we had in the street during summer.’ Mrs Warren rearranges her big comfortable shoes to steady herself. ‘They were always a bit of fun.’
Of course she remembers, the long balmy nights and lemonade spiders. Skipping rope in the middle of the road with all the other kids and falling asleep to the strains of Little Richard on the record player while the adults danced the night away in the room down the hall. Summer was endless then.
‘Grace.’ Mrs Warren surprises her with a low whistle. ‘Now she was a real firecracker. It wasn’t a party without her around.’
Isobel looks down at her sensible cream blouse. It was true.
‘You look like her, you know.’
‘Pardon?’
‘You’ve got her mouth.’ Mrs Warren grins. ‘Lucky you.’
Isobel puts a hand to her mouth before she can stop herself, the red lipstick staining her fingertips.
She glances over Mrs Warren’s shoulder and spots Bernard, tall and gangly, on the other side of the church. He’s wearing a plain wool jumper of deep green and his hands are folded in front of him. For one surreal moment, she thinks he must have known her mother too.
Mrs Warren has nodded off in the chair beside her and is emitting soft snores. Marcus is helping Lachie escort her father to a pew down the front. They look like a couple of awkward teenagers. She bites her bottom lip at the sight. Then the organ starts.
She takes her place up front with Marcus, Lachie, Mateo and her father, and spends the next hour staring at the heavy oak coffin beside the priest. It’s covered in lilies and roses and irises, a kaleidoscope of colour. In the heart of it all though is a simple bouquet of camellias from the tree outside her parents’ bedroom window. Her father picked them this morning, fastening them tightly with a curl of yellow ribbon. She had to look away when he placed them gently on top, whispering softly to the coffin as if in her mother’s ear.
Beside her on the pew, her father holds a thick fist to his mouth. And she’s aware that somewhere behind them Bernard is watching, bearing witness to it all.
After the service, Lachie and Mateo insist on driving her father to the cemetery while Marcus excuses himself to take a phone call in the car.
‘Work,’ he says and she tries to believe him.
The priest catches up with her, talking in muted tones about trusting God in times of grief. He peers kindly at her through thick-rimmed glasses and clutches a Bible to his chest as if it were a teddy bear. It’s difficult to concentrate when she can see Bernard out of the corner of her eye. Finally the priest wanders outside.
The church is empty apart from the two of them. Bernard walks towards her slowly. ‘Malcolm told me about your mum.’ Then stops close by. ‘I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am.’
The words render her speechless. For one crazy moment, she thinks he’s referring to the pregnancy before realising he isn’t. Through the big double doorway she spots Marcus in the car, talking intently on the phone, and suddenly the whole world is full of sadness. It makes her whimper.
‘Shhh,’ Bernard says, enfolding her in a hug as she cries for all the things she’s lost.
Rosie
THE HUSTLE AND BUSTLE of the ward desk and the warren of grey corridors scuffed with the wheel marks of a thousand trolleys reminds her of when Petey was born.
Bea visited her in the shared ward. It was a bright morning and the sun shone through the window onto Petey’s sleeping face in the plastic cot beside her bed. She wanted to pick him up, to feel the hot press of his tiny bundled body against hers. Everything about him was perfect, from his eyelashes to his little pink feet. It was frightening, the fact he belonged to her. She couldn’t shake the feeling someone had made a mistake. And she was terrified she might be found out.
‘There you are!’ Bea screeched as she entered the ward, upsetting the baby in the next bed. ‘Look at you.’ She swooped down and kissed Rosie on the cheek. ‘A real mother hen.’
The blue liner around her eyes creased as she
bent down to Petey. It felt like nothing bad could happen while Bea was around.
‘Geez, Rose, he’s gorgeous.’ She ran a finger down his cheek with a confidence that made Rosie look away.
The nurses had spent all morning trying to get Rosie to cuddle him, but she couldn’t. She was too afraid of the damage she might do. She wasn’t any good, surely they could see that. They told her she had to express at least then exchanged glances as they left her bedside.
It was safer not to touch. She could spend all day watching the tight curl of his fingers and the way his rosebud lips moved in his sleep. Sometimes, when she was brave, she’d bend over to catch his breath, tiny sweet gasps of it, and her desire to touch him tangled with her desire to keep him safe. She didn’t deserve him.
Bea sat on her big backside on the edge of Rosie’s bed, the koala on her cable-knit jumper veering sideways, her face worn into crinkles.
‘You want to cuddle him?’ Bea said, examining her.
She couldn’t find the words, so she shook her head.
They sat in silence, the hospital buzzing and beeping around them.
‘He needs you, you know. You’re his mum.’
The words struck hot at Rosie’s heart. Of all people, Bea should get it, should understand why she couldn’t hold Petey. She’d seen Rosie when they brought her in off the streets. She knew what she’d done to survive and how she’d pumped the proceeds up her arm. She must be daft to think Rosie could be trusted with something as precious as Petey.
‘You’ve come so far, love.’ Bea leaned forward, cupping Rosie’s face in her rough-skinned hands. ‘You should be proud.’
It might have been the hormones or the little grunt from the cot beside the bed but a tough layer inside her cracked, revealing something raw beneath.
A kitten cry, and Bea lifted Petey up and into Rosie’s arms.
‘There, there,’ she said to them both.
Rosie clutched him, afraid she’d drop him, then frightened she was holding on too tight. His eyes fluttered open briefly like butterfly wings and stopped on her face before closing again. She buried her nose in the folds of his baby suit and consumed the milky perfume of him and the clutch of his spider-leg fingers around hers. She committed this baby version of him to memory, slotted it away to turn over in her mind again and again in the future.
‘You’ll be a great mum.’ Bea rubbed her back then touched the blond fuzz on Petey’s head.
Rosie knew then he was hers and she’d never let him go.
This is what she’s thinking as she walks down the hospital corridor to room twelve in the red ward. The promise she made Petey that day, about always looking after him. She’d whispered it under her breath while Bea stroked his head. But here she is, about to tell Mr Granthall she lost him and no one knows where he is.
She stops and rests a hand on the wall next to a glove dispenser. When she closes her eyes she sees him bolting down the landing to the old man’s flat, his red jacket hanging off his shoulder and his laces undone. He turns for an instant to check if she’s there, then rattles the door handle.
‘Are you all right?’ a male nurse with an eyebrow piercing asks.
‘Yeah,’ she says and steps back, hoisting her pack onto her shoulder. ‘Can you tell me where room twelve is?’
He tilts his head as if he’s not convinced then points down the hall. ‘On the right, next to the kitchenette.’
Old-man breathing, shallow and grating, creeps into the hall as she approaches the room, and someone coughs. She stops at the door, reconsiders, then realises the nurse is still watching her.
Inside, three narrow beds are tucked behind three walls of thick blue curtain. Mr Granthall could be in any of them. The stink of disinfectant hangs in the air and a machine bleeps loudly from the other side of the room.
‘Mr Granthall?’ she calls in a small voice, unzipping her jacket slightly.
Nothing, except another cough.
‘Mr Granthall?’
Footsteps tap down the corridor and she decides she must have the wrong room or must just have it wrong altogether. When she called the hospital, they had trouble finding his name. Maybe he isn’t here after all. Maybe he’s disappeared too. Died even. Panic spreads across her body and she turns to go.
‘Yes.’
The voice is hard to hear but it’s definitely there, behind the curtains closest to the window. She parts them easily and exhales. He’s propped up, the collar of the striped pyjamas she bought him last month sitting crookedly around his neck. His skin is almost the same white as his pillow. But he smiles and it makes the trip worthwhile.
‘Rose!’
Her pack drops to the floor as she sits on the bed and takes his hand. His veins are rivers of blue and there’s a dark bruise on his wrist.
‘It’s good to see you.’ She nods, afraid to let him go.
His fingertips press into her skin and he looks at her, eyes faded like an ancient photograph. ‘Petey?’
Her chin trembles.
‘I saw it in the paper.’ His grip tightens until his nails pinch, giving her something to focus on. ‘Have they found him?’
She can hardly look back.
‘No.’ She loosens her grip and lays his hand on the covers.
They sit inches apart, unmoving as a tram bell rings on the street below and the traffic accelerates.
‘He’s only missin’ cause I’m in here.’ Mr Granthall’s hands make a ball on the covers. ‘He should have been in the flat with Churchill and me.’
She stops herself from sighing. She’s thought the same thing in darker moments. Petey should have been at Mr Granthall’s that Friday afternoon, while she went to TAFE.
She thinks of the Hallmark card on her kitchen table signed by her classmates, a row of kisses under Skye’s name and a note from Danny telling her to keep her chin up. He’d posted her a booklet of university courses before Petey went missing and had circled Communications in bright red pen so the colour bled into the print.
She should have been at TAFE that night getting an education so they could have the life she wanted them to. The whole situation played out in her head again and again, like a horror film. One event leading to another until she was on the edge of her seat and couldn’t leave even if she wanted to.
If only, she kept thinking, if only Mr Granthall’s heart hadn’t given out that morning. If only it had happened on a Monday or a Wednesday. If only she’d got another babysitter. If only she hadn’t reached the end of her tether and lost her temper. Petey would be sitting with her now, going on about Churchill.
‘Churchill.’ It slips straight from her head, out her mouth.
He clears his throat. ‘I shouldn’t be saying this to you, Rose, but I’m worried.’
A nurse pokes her head around the corner and smiles at them. ‘I’ll come back a bit later to take your blood pressure.’ Then yanks the curtain across.
‘That lady next door to you, she visited me here.’ He glances at the ceiling. ‘Can’t remember her name. Shirl or Sandy, something like that. She was going to feed him but then her husband wouldn’t allow it. Said Churchill was dangerous.’ He shakes his head. ‘Dangerous … He wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
‘He hasn’t had food for six days?’ She frowns. ‘Jesus.’
Mr Granthall peers down at his hands for a long time. ‘I didn’t want to call you.’
It makes her cringe to think about Churchill curled into a ball somewhere, dying of hunger. ‘I’ll go and check him now.’ She slides off the bed and picks up her pack from the floor.
‘You’re a good girl, Rose.’ He smiles sadly. ‘The two of them will be running around the park together again in no time. I’ll take them to see the boats.’
She nods, desperate to believe him.
A breeze rustles the peppercorn leaves as she strides through the park towards the playground. It makes her think what Mr Granthall said is possible. Maybe it won’t be long before Petey’s home again.
It
’ll be a quick trip, she promises herself. Just long enough to satisfy the feeling, before she checks Churchill. Twenty minutes won’t do him any more harm.
The closer she gets, the easier it is to believe. The boathouse. Why didn’t she think about it before?
‘Shit,’ she says, loudly enough that an old woman walking past gives her the evil eye. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’
It’s been a week. Her head plays mean tricks, makes her hopeful then throws up another reason why she shouldn’t be. How could he survive here without food and water? But there are taps, and the lake. Her mind’s so messy she doesn’t know which way to think.
The lake. She walks faster. The number of times she’s had to fish him out, waded up to her knees to tug him back to shore. He hates her for it every time.
The path twists towards the lake then flattens out again so she can see the boatshed in the distance. The rowboats behind it are the perfect hiding spot, each one overturned and covered in a tarpaulin for winter. The thought makes her heart beat easier.
A kid and his dad play football nearby. The boy’s cheeks are red like his hair.
‘Watch, Dad!’ he screams, kicking the ball.
She should call Detective Khanna. That’s what she’s supposed to do.
‘Call if you think of anything.’ The detective had looked hard at her. ‘Anything at all.’
She was losing hope, Rosie could tell by the way she lowered her voice when she said Petey’s name. Rosie glared at her.
The detective paused. ‘We’ve got ways of handling these situations.’ Her breath smelled of coffee.
‘What situations?’
The detective pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘Just call.’
Rosie owed it to Petey to be hopeful, but she couldn’t explain that to Detective Khanna. She brought him into the world. Birthed him, fed him, loved him, resented him, winced at every bump and scratch. It didn’t matter how hard it got. He was hers. She had to believe he’d be okay, even if no one else would. The alternative was impossible. The detective could go to hell.