Mirror Me

by Rachel Sanderson

  ‘Try not to give your imagination free reign, Abbie. It’s most likely unrelated. As a doctor, one thing I can tell you is that people die,’ Mum gives me a sad smile and squeezes my hand. ‘Everybody does, eventually, one way or another. I know that’s bad news, but it’s the truth.’

  ‘I’m feeling a bit better now,’ I say, ignoring the icy-flittery feeling in my chest and the churning in my gut. ‘Maybe I’ll go and sit in the waiting room and wait for Zeke. You must have a bunch of people waiting to see you.’

  ‘If you’re sure? I want you to stick around here for at least an hour so I can keep an eye on you. And I don’t want you to be on your own for the next day or so. Just to be on the safe side. Okay?’

  I nod. Mum ushers me out of her room, which is decorated with pictures that Tom drew her a few years back, and a framed photo of me dressed up as a fairy for a school performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream – the highlight of my acting career. I wonder if this was Dr O’Reilley’s room too? I wonder what pictures he had up? Pictures of Damien and Becky? Pictures of them smiling and looking happy? I try to push the thought away.

  I sit down on the far bench. I pull out my phone and dial Tina. I need to know that she’s okay.

  The phone rings a dozen times then goes through to voicemail.

  I try again and this time someone answers on the sixth ring.

  ‘Yeah what?’ It’s a man’s voice.

  ‘Tina?’ I say.

  ‘Sorry who?’

  ‘I’m looking for Christina Trick. She gave me this mobile number to contact her on.’

  ‘Never heard of her.’

  ‘Oh, um, sorry,’ I say and he hangs up.

  In one corner of the reception area a television is playing without sound. The subtitles for the deaf are on, so I get a running, if slightly distorted, textual rendering of what people are saying on the screen.

  I sit up when a regional news update flashes on. The discovery of the body is the lead story.

  There’s footage of police, crime scene tape, flashing lights, concerned neighbours.

  Then an overweight, red-faced officer gives a brief media conference. I jump up and turn the volume up. The receptionist glares at me but I ignore her. I need to hear this.

  ‘The victim has not yet been formally identified but I can confirm that it is a young male. Police consider the circumstances of death to be suspicious.’

  I exhale. That rules Tina out, at least.

  A reporter breaks through: ‘There have been reports that it is a child. That the body was found clothed in a school uniform. Can you confirm these reports?’

  The officer clears his throat. ‘I cannot confirm those reports at this time. I’d ask you to avoid speculation until we’re able to provide formal identification. We are in the process of contacting family members. You understand that these things take time. I ask the media and the public to respect the process that is underway and avoid unhelpful public speculation. Anybody with information they feel might be relevant should provide that directly to the police through the Crimestoppers hotline.’

  And then a thought occurs to me that seizes me with a fear unlike any I have felt before.

  A young male, a child, dressed in his school uniform…

  Tom.

  I rise to my feet and run to Mum’s door and start banging at it with my good hand.

  The receptionist stands and starts to say something but before she has the chance Mum opens the door and her expression shifts in an instant from annoyance to concern.

  ‘Have you heard from Tom today?’ I say. ‘How is he getting home? The police say the victim is a child. A boy. Wearing a school uniform. We need to make sure Tom’s okay. Please…’

  Chapter thirty-eight

  Of course, Tom doesn’t have a phone. Mum and Stacey made a rule – not until you’re twelve. Twelve! Most kids have mobile phones and iPads and god knows what by the time they’re eight. Up until now it’s just been an inconvenience but today I could scream. There’s no way to contact him directly.

  We ring the school and the receptionist sounds concerned but can’t give us any information. We’re probably not the only people ringing in a panic given the news that’s just broken. The final bell went twenty minutes ago, kids are everywhere, and finding one of them amongst the chaos is a difficult task, but she promises she’ll keep her eye out.

  There’s an outbreak of gastro in town so Mum can’t leave the surgery straight away, but she agrees to let me go with Zeke and drive over to the school to try to find Tom. Normally he’d just make his way, as slowly as possible, via the fish and chip shop, to the surgery, and be there before five when Mum finishes up. But that’s more than an hour away. There’s no way I can wait that long. And Mum is trying to sound calm and sensible and unflustered but I can tell she’s anxious too. Anyway, if there are people being found randomly dead, Tom shouldn’t be walking around on his own until the police know what’s going on.

  ‘Thanks Zeke,’ I say as he opens the passenger side door for me.

  ‘Zeke’s taxi service, for friendly and efficient transport,’ he says, touching my back gently as I clamber in. I try to laugh but truth is I feel like throwing up. All I can think of is Tom. Until I see him, until I know that he’s safe, nothing else matters.

  We head through town and I look out the window, scanning the streets for a sign of my brother. I see bunches of kids in the familiar navy-blue uniform, hauling their huge school bags, trailing slowly, trawling the shops, crossing the road with the supreme confidence that all traffic will stop for them. Don’t they know?

  I want to yell at them. Someone is dead. They need to get home, get to their parents. They need to be somewhere safe. I study every face but none of them is Tom.

  We turn off and climb the hill up to Holy Spirit Primary School. This is the older part of town. The houses are larger, built a hundred years ago or more, with gardens of trailing cottage roses and big old trees shading the front yards. Holy Spirit is built into the slope, with concrete paths winding down through a bunch of buildings up near the top, to playing fields, drama studio and gym at the bottom. Mostly Tom and his friends hang around out the front on the street where the parents zip in and pick kids up from. The teacher on duty today is an older woman with greying hair and a tired but cheerful expression. And there are more cars than usual – a big queue leading up the street. I guess everyone’s heard the news and people are doing pick-ups when they’d usually just let their kids walk.

  Zeke parks a couple of blocks away and we walk past the church, an old dark-stone building with a high spire, and up to the school. It’s like trying to swim against a strong current – there are kids everywhere and parents too. My heart start to beat faster. I think Zeke reads my mind because he takes my good hand and squeezes. I steady myself. I’m here to find Tom. That job is too important. I have to be strong. I can’t break down now.

  I spot a kid I recognise, one of Tom’s friends, though I don’t remember his name.

  ‘Hey,’ I say, waving at him to get his attention. ‘D’you know where Tom is?’

  ‘Ahhh, sorry nope. I think he’s gone down the main street.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Are your parents picking you up?’

  ‘Should be,’ he says.

  ‘Well stay right here where the teacher can see you and wait for them, okay?’

  He looks at me with big, I-think-she’s-cray-cray eyes.

  ‘I’m serious,’ I say in the sternest voice I can muster.

  We try the newsagent first, then the fish and chip shop, with no luck. Then we start working door-to-door, checking every single premise on the main strip, including Heather’s Fashion Frocks and the Sewing Shack, which are places I cannot think of a single reason for Tom to ever set foot inside.

  I’m starting to get that weird nightmare feeling, like things are hurtling towards something bad and I can’t stop them. Every door we open I expect to see him, and every time we don’t my mouth gets drier and
my heart beats faster and I have to fight harder not to sit down on the side of the road and cry.

  ‘I think we should head back to the surgery,’ Zeke says. ‘You’re looking pale. And he might just go straight there anyway.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say, though I want to keep searching. My head is starting to throb and that whoosh-whoosh feeling is filling me, like I might pass out at any moment. We walk back up the road.

  When we push the door open, my heart almost stops. The receptionist, Mrs Lahey, is crying. Standing at the counter talking to Mrs Lahey, with my Mum pale-faced beside him, is a police officer. As I walk in they all turn and stare at me. My knees turn to liquid.

  ‘It’s okay Abbie,’ Mum says quickly. ‘Tom’s fine. He’s with Stacey. But Officer Smith would like to talk to you.’

  ‘Why? What’s going on?’

  ‘Could we use one of your consulting rooms Dr Fray? Somewhere private. And if you could come and sit in with us?’

  I feel numb as I follow the officer into the empty room. Mum’s close behind me. Zeke is left open-mouthed in the waiting room as the door is closed.

  ‘Sit down please Abbie. I need to ask you a few questions.’

  I couldn’t keep standing even if I wanted to.

  ‘Tom’s okay?’ I say again, turning to Mum, but I can tell that he must be. She looks strained but calm.

  ‘He’s fine.’

  The police officer clears his throat. ‘We understand that you left Derrington State High School in the company of David Hill at around 2.00pm this afternoon. Is that correct?’

  I nod. The words register in my mind, but I can’t let myself think what they mean.

  ‘I need to get as many details from you as possible ...’

  I look at his face. He looks so serious. I don’t understand what’s going on.

  ‘Abbie. We need you to tell the police everything you know. Everything that you can remember about this afternoon.’ Mum’s voice is even but I can hear a million questions behind her words.

  ‘Dave was helping me,’ I say. ‘I was trying to find Christina Trick. Rebecca O’Reilley’s best friend.’

  Mum’s face flashes for a moment with some intense emotion, but she composes herself and nods. ‘And where did you go? Did you find Christina? Did you meet anyone else?’

  ‘We walked to Acacia Flats. You know, on Farrier Street?’ The police officer nods and writes something in his notebook. ‘Dave knew somebody there. I don’t know what his name was but we knocked on his door first and he told us where to find Tina. Dave called him Possum. He might have been Dave’s dealer. I think that’s what he wanted me to think but it might not have been true either. Dave likes messing with people.’

  ‘Do you remember what flat number this man was in? Would you be able to recognise him if you saw him again?’

  I nod. ‘Yep. It was on the ground floor, right down the end. And I’d recognise him, for sure.’

  ‘Okay, thanks Abbie.’

  ‘You’re doing well,’ Mum says, encouragingly.

  ‘Dave walked me up to Tina’s flat. When she answered the door, I told him that he should leave.’

  ‘Why was that?’ the officer asks.

  ‘He just… he makes people uncomfortable. I wanted to talk to Tina. It was hard enough as it was.’

  The officer nods like he understands completely. ‘And what did you want to talk to Tina about?’ he asks.

  I freeze. I open my mouth but no words come out. I think of the nightmare, the house, the thoughts that keep invading my mind. The questions that demand answers as powerfully as though they were a physical requirement to my staying alive.

  ‘Abbie?’ Mum says.

  ‘I just… I had some questions about Rebecca O’Reilley. I found out on the weekend that the rescue dog we’ve been looking after was actually Becky’s dog. And, you know, I look like her. People have said things. I’m sorry, what’s actually going on? Why are you asking me all this?’

  The policeman clears his throat. ‘Abbie, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Dave has been found dead.’

  I hardly hear anything else he says after that.

  Dave. Dead?

  I can’t believe it. Dead? I saw him a matter of hours ago. He was fine.

  I remember the look he’d given me before he’d wandered off, shirt hanging out, scuffed shoes, greasy hair, inflamed pimples and all. I remember his last words: Geez don’t say thanks or anything. I flush with shame, with rage, with disbelief. Those might have been the last words he said in his whole life.

  ‘How did he die? Can you tell me anything?’

  ‘We believe it was a hit and run. We don’t know if it was an accident, and someone panicked and fled the scene, or if there’s more to it than that. That’s why everything you’re able to tell us is vitally important.’

  And then it hits me. The impact takes all the air from me, leaves me shocked and gasping. I can’t breathe.

  This is my fault.

  If I hadn’t dragged Dave out of school, he’d have been sitting bored through maths, telling bad jokes, disrupting the class and annoying the teacher. If I hadn’t asked him to help me he’d still be alive.

  Chapter thirty-nine

  I hug Tom like a crazy person when I see him. Mum and Stacey exchange a look. I’m in shock, I guess, because now I’ve got my brother in my arms I start shaking and crying.

  ‘Abbie?’ he says. He sounds scared.

  ‘It’s okay Tom. Just glad to see you.’

  ‘Couch, guys. Stacey can you get Abbie a blanket please? And I’ll get a hot chocolate on.’

  Warmth and sugar, Mum’s answers to many of life’s problems. I’m not sure if that’s what they teach you in med school but it seems to work.

  I don’t think it will work now though. I keep getting flashes of Dave – alive, being a dick; cold and damaged and dead, on a gurney waiting to be sawn open for an autopsy. I know a little bit about autopsies due to random late-night TV watching and now I wish I didn’t. I didn’t like Dave, but I don’t want to think of him like that.

  And along with all the other thoughts is the one that I keep pushing away, but I know requires an answer, sooner rather than later.

  Who did this? And why? And did it have anything to do with me visiting Christina?

  Mum tucks me in like she used to do when I got sick when I was little. Then she brings me a big mug of hot chocolate and I sip it, feeling the warmth and the sweetness ease into my veins. Mum sits next to me. I rest my head against her shoulder and she puts an arm around me. I don’t have any words left and I’m grateful she doesn’t try to talk to me or ask me any questions, even though I can sense them brewing away inside her.

  ‘Can I watch some Dr Who?’ Tom asks, taking advantage of the unusual circumstances in the hope that the no-TV-till-after-homework rule doesn’t apply. Mum says yes. He puts it on and I close my eyes and listen to the sound of alien worlds and time travel and feisty companions facing terrible danger. And then, unexpectedly, all in a rush like a storm breaking, I start to cry.

  I wake the next morning disorientated, with no sense of time having passed. For a second I think I’m back in my room in Sydney then I realise I’m clutching the teddy that Tina gave me. Mum must have put it into the bed with me while I was sleeping.

  I sit the teddy up on the pillow beside me and check my phone – it’s almost ten, and there are a bunch of messages from Zeke and Helena. I can vaguely hear the sound of a mower outside. Mum was getting Andy to clear some of the grass around the house this week. It was a fire hazard to leave it too long, he’d told us.

  I peek through the blinds and blink at the bright light. I must have slept for fourteen hours at least. I rub my head. For a moment, I wonder whether Mum put something in the chocolate she gave me, not that she ever would, and then the memory of the hot chocolate brings back the feelings of the day before and everything that happened and I drop the blind shut again and curl myself up into a ball under the blankets.

  E
ventually I sit up and pull my laptop off the table and turn it on. I want to check the news. Mum will probably try to stop me once I’m up. She’ll think it’s too upsetting or something.

  I log on and open a browser and go to the ABC local news. The first thing I see is a picture of Dave. They somehow managed to find one that actually looked kind of okay. He’s wearing a t-shirt and he has a fishing rod and a big blue sky behind him. He’s grinning. I find myself starting to cry again. Dave’s dead. Dave is dead and it’s my fault. I study the picture and try to imagine Dave and Becky being friends. I wonder if that was before Dave got so bitter about everything, before his personality got that jag that seemed to need to hurt everyone around him? I think about what he said about how she reacted to him kissing her: she was brutal. I wonder if that was why he got so bitter?

  There’s no real information in the article. It doesn’t sound like the police know anything more than when I spoke to them yesterday. I wonder if they’ve been back to the flats and spoken to the guy, spoken to Tina? At the thought of Tina something in me constricts and then hardens. She gave me a wrong number. It could have been a mistake but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. She didn’t want to ever talk to me again. Her choice, I guess. I close my eyes. I test my sore hand. It seems like a million years ago that I cut it, but it was only yesterday. I spread my fingers wide, ball them up into a fist. It hurts a little and there’s tightness where the cut is healing, but it feels a lot better.

  I ease myself out of bed, gingerly. My whole body aches. I’ve got nothing to complain about though, I remind myself.

  I’m alive.

  I pull on a long cardie and head down to the kitchen.

  ‘Abbie,’ Mum says, getting up from the chair when she sees me. ‘How’re you feeling? Sit down and I’ll get you something to eat.’

  ‘Aren’t you working today?’ I ask.

  ‘I’ll go in a bit later.’