White Balance

by Paton, Ainslie

  The male paramedic was talking to David. Much the same as Bailey had done, asking him to open his eyes, telling him what was happening. He had Bailey keep hold of David’s hand. He asked the rest of them to stand back.

  In what might have been years or seconds, they had David on a stretcher and wheeled him into the back of the ambulance, slammed the door, the sirens wailing as they took off the wrong way down a one way street.

  David’s footy tipping mate was on the phone. The other two started back towards their office. Bailey was still sitting on the pavement. Aiden gave her his hand and she took it, uncoiling slowly, unsteadily to her feet, coming to stand close to him. She lifted her face. She was dry-eyed, but she looked exhausted. He put his arm around her shoulders and drew her into him for a hug. She leaned in, her arms folded, forearms against his chest, her head down on his shoulder, taking deep breaths.

  He was holding her up, but she was his anchor, reminding him while Shannon died, David might live. They lived. Him and Bailey.

  He felt her stir. She lifted her face and gave him a weak smile. “Heck of a first day, Aid.”

  He tucked the stray curl behind her ear again. “You’re some lunch date, Bails.”

  “Apparently I’m Scarlett Johansson with dark hair.”

  “Did I say that out loud?” Aiden laughed, embarrassed.

  She nodded and stepped back out of his arms. “Funny.”

  “It’s true. You do have a bit of Scarlett about you.”

  “You need new contacts.”

  “How do you know I wear them?”

  “I could see them, when were on the ground with me.”

  Aiden shook his head. “Hard to keep anything from you. Come on. I need a drink. We need to raid the staff supplies.”

  “Blake keeps some good stuff in his office, but you’ll have to prise the liquor cabinet key off Cara.”

  “No problem. Let’s go.”

  They exchanged details with David’s colleague who promised to keep them up to date with David’s progress and started back to Heed. There was no disguising Bailey’s limp. She was struggling to keep up, so he slowed his pace and when she came alongside she said, “There’s no blood in my legs. How long was I kneeling for? He was heavy.”

  All that was likely true but there was something more. If this was only a circulation issue, Bailey would’ve shaken if off by now. Instead she looked deathly white and her left leg was almost dragging.

  Aiden stopped. “Hey, you’re not alright.”

  She limped past him, “Of course I am. Just radical pins and needles. It’ll be fine in a minute.”

  But it wasn’t and when they got back to Heed, Aiden saw the way Bailey gripped the banister. She couldn’t disguise her slow progress up the staircase. He was a step below her when she turned to eyeball him. Looking straight into his contacts, his eyes and his bruised soul below, calling his bluff.

  “Ok. I limp. It’s an old injury. It acts up sometimes. It’s no big deal.”

  But her face showed her pain, like the clench in her fist on the railing, like the narrowed squint of her eyes. It was more than she was admitting. She was busted wide open, holding all the wrong cards and he could win the hand. He understood completely why she would want to hide her pain, and how much harder it was for her to conceal something physical than it was for him to bury his emotional scars.

  He said, “Got you,” and he meant it to let her off the hook, to let her have the lie. But he realised she saw the second meaning the moment she turned away and wouldn’t look at him.

  “Bailey?” They’d tried to save a man’s life, they’d done that together. She couldn’t lie to him now.

  She let go the banister and jogged the last few steps to the top of the staircase where she turned back to him. If her face hadn’t been so pale, and her shoulders not so rigid, he might’ve bought the show of bravado.

  “It’s nothing, see. Do you want that drink or not?”

  He was left wondering what it cost her. He held her eyes till they flicked away. “Make mine a double.”

  19: Flutter and Ice

  Bailey phoned Doug on the way home from work. He swore, had to cancel another client, but agreed to meet her, leaving instructions to run a cold water bath.

  She was dressed in her one piece swimmers with a sarong around her waist when he arrived, toting bags of party ice which he upended into the bath. Doug had threatened her with ice baths before but never followed through. He plonked himself down on the closed toilet seat and pulled out a body building magazine.

  “How long do I have to be an icy-pole?”

  “How bad have you been?”

  “I didn’t call you to punish me. I’ve had a rough day.”

  “You think this is punishment?”

  “I think this is probably illegal, and considered an act of violence in some states.”

  Doug folded the magazine in half and settled back against the cistern. “It’s not going to get any warmer while you wait you know.”

  “I might cry.”

  Doug looked up from a magazine article on the similarities between overtraining syndrome and executive burnout. “That’ll be the day. I’ve never seen you close to tears in all the time I’ve been,” he leaned forward to pull at the knot on Bailey’s sarong, “punishing you.”

  “I can’t believe I pay for this.”

  Doug grinned and Bailey’s sarong hit the tiles. “Neither can I. Get in.”

  He made her lay there for about a decade. Until she was well past shivering, well past teeth clattering, till she was tricked into thinking it wasn’t so cold after all.

  “Do I get to have a hot shower after this?”

  “No.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  ‘No.”

  “I hate you.”

  Doug kept his eyes on his magazine but poked his tongue out at her. Bailey swirled some ice cubes around with her feet. “Hey, do I remind you of anyone famous?”

  “Attila the Hun.”

  Bailey threw an ice cube at him.

  “Snoopy.”

  Another ice cube, this one bounced off his chest. “Why are you asking me that?”

  “To stave off brain freeze.”

  “Well I usually only look at your back and it doesn’t remind me of anyone famous.”

  “Fair point.”

  “But if you’re asking me if I think you’re cute?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Yeah you are. Then yeah, I think you’re totally hot.”

  “You’re saying that because I’m lying in an igloo.”

  “Yep.”

  “I really hate you. Can I have my hot shower now?”

  “No. But you can get out.”

  Doug held a towel out, but much as Bailey wanted out of the bath, the best she could do was struggle up to a sitting position. “Ah, poor Eskimo.” Doug reached down to help her up, and when she stood beside him, he wrapped her in the oversized towel and rubbed her arms.

  “Did the bloke cark it?”

  “No, David—he’s in intensive care. He has a long way to go before he’s in the clear.”

  “Were you on your own when you found him?”

  “No.” How to describe Aiden, a man she felt she’d known much longer than a single afternoon? A man who’d held her hand and hugged her, made her heart do the dance of a thousand butterflies, and looked into her face and watched her lie.

  “A colleague was with me. He was great. Never flinched. He dealt with all the critical stuff. He called the ambo, and found David’s colleagues, and got them to call his family.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “I stayed with David and talked to him. A whole lot of nothing, just so he could hear a voice and know he wasn’t alone. I thought he was going to die. I thought he was going to die lying in my lap. I wanted to go with him in the ambo, but they wouldn’t let me.”

  “That guy needs to buy you two a lottery ticket. He’d be dead for sure if you weren’t t
here.”

  Bailey shivered and it wasn’t a left over ice bath reaction. She’d never looked death so closely in the face before or been covered in its blood. She sagged against Doug and he walked her into the bedroom.

  “Do I get a massage now?” She was so tired she thought she’d probably sleep through it. She probably should call home and talk to someone, but that felt like too much fuss as well.

  “No. You get a cup of tea, a big glass of water and some Vegemite toast which I’ll make for you, because I’m a special kind of bloke. I want you to go to sleep. That’s what you need now.”

  “How did you know I’d want Vegemite toast?”

  Doug laughed. “Because it’s what everyone wants when they’ve stared death in the face.”

  Bailey nodded. Sleep was what she needed. She said, “No dry corners,” to Doug’s back as he left the room. She could hear him clattering about in the kitchen while she changed into soft cotton shorts and a singlet top to sleep in, and brushed out her hair.

  She rescued her mobile to set a second alarm in case she slept through the first one, and noticed two new messages. One from Blake, and one from an unknown number. She listened to them on speaker.

  Blake said, “Bails, call me if you need anything. Have tomorrow off, or at least start late. Seriously don’t come in tomorrow, have a few days off. Get some sunshine and feel alive, ok. That was fucking wild today. Like wow. I can’t believe it. You and Aid go out for a sandwich and you save someone’s life. I knew there was a good reason to keep you guys apart. Better your super powers are kept under wraps. Can’t have the public thinking they can fall over anywhere and you’ll be there to pick them up. Anyway, Olivia sends her love. Get some sleep.”

  The voice on the next message was Aiden’s—immediately recognisable, immediately the warm bath she’d been denied. “Bailey, Blake gave me your number. I hope you don’t mind. I hope you’re feeling ok. I’m wiped. Reckon I could sleep a million years. I wanted to thank you for today, except that sounds insane. I mean, thank you for your time over lunch and you know, if I’m ever looking for a partner to save someone’s life, it would be you. So—ah, sleep well, Bailey. I’ll see you when you’re back on deck. And call me if you want to talk, or you need anything or whatever. Night.”

  “Who was that?” Doug had a tray filled with toast and tea.

  “That was Aiden, the guy with me today, and before him, Blake, the boss.”

  “Good. I’m glad they get how awful what you went through was. I want you to take time off too.”

  “I thought I might have a sleep in and go in at lunchtime.”

  “Take a day. Shit, I’d like you to take a week, Bailey. Despite the old Antarctic in the bathroom treatment, you’re still going to be sore and sorry tomorrow. And by the way, I know you’re back on the Cerebrex.”

  “You went through my bathroom cupboard!”

  He shrugged. “The empty pack was in your kitchen bin. You weren’t going to tell me were you? Annnd you’re not going to answer me now either. Bugger me, Bailey. You’re a hard person to help you know. But I’m not going to beat up on you tonight. Get in bed.”

  She did and Doug laid the tray across her lap.

  “What’s the leg feel like?”

  “Better, numb.”

  “Great. You know how I hate numb. Check in with me tomorrow, ok.” Doug stepped away from the bed. “The ice is on me, but you still owe me a house call.” In the hallway he called, “Bailey?”

  “What?”

  “Lock this door before you go to sleep.” She heard her front door, close and the house was quiet. Even fortified with toast it was too hard to get out of bed to lock the door. She would definitely sleep in tomorrow, in fact sleep till she woke. She turned her bedside clock alarm off and the one on the mobile, and that reminded her of the blog. If she had to get up to lock the front door it would only take two seconds to pull up a file shot and post, and that meant she could forget about it in the morning.

  In a minute. She could do all that in a minute. She thought about the two calls. Blake sounded slightly frenzied, as though he was thinking through the ramifications of David’s collapse as he spoke. Aiden sounded more together, but then he knew exactly what happened. She wondered if he remembered it all. He hadn’t appeared to remember his Scarlett comment until she’d mentioned it. Would he remember taking her hand, holding her in his arms?

  As zonked as she was, as heavy as her body felt—weighty enough to sink through the mattress and the bed slats and down onto the floor, where she could stare up at the cartoon-like outline of where she’d been, Bailey’s brain was still in a whirl thinking about Aiden. About how it felt to be in his arms. Like everything was going to be ok. About how when he’d brushed her cheek with his knuckle to tuck her hair behind her ear, the butterflies had started fluttering despite the fact there was a dying man in her lap.

  They were fluttering now.

  What did that mean? That she was quite reasonably traumatised and tired silly or she had the hots for Blake’s best, married friend? A man who she’d once thought for no good reason was sad, and now knew to be strong and capable, good in a crisis and scarily smart. A man who knew she’d lied about the penguin, and let her get away with it.

  She hauled herself out of bed. Staggered to the front door and locked it. Grabbed her tablet and brought it back to bed. She went to the file where she kept shots that hadn’t yet been posted. She was searching for something cheerful. She was going to dedicate it to David. She’d looked at about a dozen shots before she found one that fit the bill. A dolphin leaping, arching in the air, framed by an orange sunrise. It was a lucky shot, though she’d waited hours for it. She’d taken it one of the first days post surgery when she’d been able to leave the house. She’d taken twenty or thirty shots that day and posted the most spectacular of them, a group of dolphins sailing the air. This fellow, this single leaping fish, she knew would come in handy one day, and this was the day.

  Unless there was something better? The backup file had gotten big now, several hundred images in it. She really should clean it out and delete once and for all what wasn’t up to scratch and schedule the rest to post. She opened a few more images, momentarily distracted from her exhaustion. They had fairly obvious file names, dolphin tail, cats on roof, tire sculpture, push-up woman, purple flower, spider web, sad man.

  She opened spider web and saw an enormous spider suspended between two trees in a huge web. She knew it was a web, but in the pic the spider looked like he was flying or swimming with the blue sky backdrop. Not a great shot. She went to open sad man, her finger hovering over the file image. She knew this was a man she’d seen at the beach whose whole posture talked of some inner pain. She’d had enough of pain today, pain and fear and death. She closed the folder. She posted the leaping dolphin with the caption ‘for David’, shut the tablet off, clicked the bedside light off, and let the weight of the day and all its twists and terrors drag her off the edge of consciousness and into sleep.

  20: Selling the Family Car

  Aiden felt so wiped out he could hardly see straight. How did superheros do it? The exhaustion you felt after helping save someone’s life never made it into Marvel comics did it? The Hulk never said, ‘Hey, I need a good eight hours sleep before I go all jolly green giant and save the world again’. But he should have. He should’ve asked for more money on top of an ‘all he could rip’ clothing sponsorship from Big & Tall.

  Despite the heaviness that robbed his limbs of their will to move, Aiden’s brain was fizzing. The Hulk for fuck’s sake. He’d started a new job, met the incredible Bailey, helped save a man’s life, and he was sitting here thinking about the fucking Hulk.

  Hunger didn’t help. He grilled cheese on toast and made a hot chocolate, hoped that lethal combo punch to the gut combined with this survivor’s exhaustion might send the insomnia running for the hills. An hour later he was staring at the lounge room ceiling having not had the energy to find the TV remote.


  He couldn’t settle because he was angry. Though that said something awful about his character. But now that it was over, he begrudged David Millar his life when Shannon had to lose hers. David was sixty-four. He had a grown-up, married daughter called Rhonda, he had a three year old grandkid called Hamish, and he was looking forward to retirement. He’d had his turn. Sixty plus birthdays to Shannon’s thirty odd. She only got half the ride, half the benefit, half the choices, half the experiences and no second chance.

  He sat up. He could feel that anger build, giving new strength to tired limbs. He cleaned the kitchen, thought about going to bed and knew it wouldn’t take. He knew he needed to be doing something. It was too late for the gym, he didn’t have a head for working, but he could run. It would be better than feeling caged by this anger, and the guilt and fear that piggybacked it.

  He backed the car out of the drive. The family car, the one Shannon wanted to replace the sporty numbers he’d always driven. He didn’t need this car anymore with its seat six ability, its big rear for toting around the mountains of stuff families needed. He’d trade the stupid thing in and go back to driving something he liked again. Something strung low that purred, with high profile tires and seats that were impractical, and virtually no boot space.

  Something that said sex instead of daddy.

  He drove to the beach, parked and got out. He ran on the promenade under the amber lights that kept it safe at night—back and forth, back and forth. He had the place to himself, only the odd lone walker and a fast wheeling, screaming seagull to share with. He worked up a sweat. He waited for the anger to burn out and the exhaustion to take over. He ran and tried to think of something other than the sucker punch that had him save an unknown man’s life when he could do nothing to save his own adored wife’s.

  But there was more to be angry about.