Cross My Heart

by Pamela Cook

  The kind of quiet that leaves the mind spinning.

  Grace was sound asleep in her mother’s bed, no frown lines creasing her brow, no restless tossing and turning. She looked so peaceful there was almost a hint of a smile on her slightly opened mouth. Tess leaned down and brushed a whisper of a kiss to the girl’s forehead. She’d done so well today, been so proud of herself the way she led that horse through the obstacle course. She’d raced inside to fill in her journal as soon as they got back, then devoured her dinner and crashed out not long after.

  The little black book was sitting right there beside the bed, begging to be flipped open. Tess pushed the pads of her joined index fingers against her lips. So tempting. A quick peek is all it would take to find out what was in Grace’s head. But that would be an act of betrayal. No, she’d wait for Grace to read it to her at the next session or share it with her beforehand if that’s what she chose.

  ‘Are you going to write in yours?’ Tess had been preparing dinner when Grace had thrown her the question. She’d given her a quick reply, an easy way to delay contemplating the answer. ‘Maybe later.’

  Now, it was later. Nine pm.

  She ran the tip of her index finger over the embossed head of the horse on the cover. A series of curved lines formed the mane, a few shorter strokes outlining the face. Everything about the day had been so tactile—the brushing of that plush, warm coat, the unmistakeable thumping of Samson’s heart beneath her splayed hand. So surprising and yet so comforting.

  The rush of memories really wasn’t so unexpected. Ever since the day the letter had arrived about Grace—about Skye—they’d started surfacing, like pieces of flotsam and jetsam washing in on the tide of her past. Being here in Skye’s home, around her belongings, her daughter; finding the photocopy about Harrison and then those confronting images in the shed. All of it had dredged up her deepest fears, her darkest secret. Working with the horse had forced her to face them, once and for all.

  A piercing pain stabbed at the space behind her temples. She couldn’t talk about them after the session, not in front of Grace, but they needed to be dealt with or they’d only come back louder and stronger and more insistent than ever. She’d spent the last twenty years storing them away in the junkyard of her brain, but if she was going to be any sort of mother to Grace—if they were going to continue the progress they’d started to make—her own issues had to be sorted. Embers glowed in the pot-belly, but a thin film of ice had settled beneath her skin. She threaded her arms through the chunky wool sleeves of her cardigan as she took one more glance at Grace. Still sleeping peacefully. Lifting the chair so as not to disturb the quiet, Tess moved it over to the table and opened the journal, picked up a pen and began.

  It was a Friday. Aunty Jean was away for the weekend visiting friends in Woy Woy, so I was sleeping over to keep Skye company. We were both fifteen, in Year Ten at school, and even though we were in different classes we still hung out on the weekends and walked home together every day.

  When I thought about it later, the way she’d gripped my arm and pleaded with me to come for a sleepover, she’d almost begged. I laughed at her. Said it wasn’t a big deal and of course I would, but I didn’t think any more about why she was so frantic. It was only later I realised why.

  We called by my house to pick up clothes and demolished a batch of choc-chip cookies Mum had baked for afternoon tea. When we arrived at Skye’s he was on his way out. He’d been staying for a couple of weeks. He gave us this weird smile and said something like, ‘I’ll be out late tonight, don’t wait up.’ Skye didn’t even look at him, but I heard her mumble under her breath, ‘Fat chance.’ I’d asked her about him a while before, when he’d first arrived, and she’d said he was her uncle, the black sheep of the family, whom her gran only tolerated even though he was her son. He was staying for a while after coming back from overseas.

  We had frozen pizza, watched a few movies and went to bed around midnight. I was in the spare bed in her room, like always. Usually we’d talk for hours, but she said she was tired. I was kind of mad with her. She’d been acting strange all night, hardly saying a word. Made me wonder why she’d even invited me in the first place, but I didn’t say anything. There was a tap dripping in the bathroom and I listened to the drip, drip, drip as I went off to sleep.

  Sometime later a noise woke me up. At first everything was fuzzy. The room was dark, but there was a crack of light. When we’d gone to bed Skye had stared down the hallway and then closed the door, rattling the handle as if she was testing it was shut. I asked her what she was doing, but she didn’t answer. Once my eyes adjusted, I rolled over and looked across to Skye’s bed. I couldn’t see her. All I could see was a dark shape, a figure, and then I heard those horrible noises he was making and straightaway I knew what was happening. I was too scared to even blink. My eyes began to sting. His hand was over her mouth and he was grunting like a pig. Did he think I wouldn’t hear? Wouldn’t wake up? Or did he just not care? I wanted to yell at him to stop, but the words were like bricks cemented in the column of my throat. Inside my head, I screamed at him to leave her alone. Only one word came out, in a strangled kind of moan. Stop.

  He climbed off the bed and stood up. I knew without being able to see that he was looking right at me.

  Hot tears welled in her eyes. The pen froze in her hand. This was as far as she’d ever let herself remember. If she didn’t exorcise the rest of the memory now, would she ever be able to accept what she’d done and move on? From the far corner of the room, Grace rolled over and sighed. It was the push she needed to continue.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, willing him to go away, hoping that this was some sort of horrible nightmare. I rolled myself into a ball, trying to make myself smaller, but then his mouth was on my cheek. The pillow ballooned around my face. His nicotine fingers were in my hair. A rough whisper scraped against my ear. So pretty. Such silky hair. I’d like a taste of you. I whimpered, like a dog tied up on a chain, his hands pushing against my shoulders. He yanked my hair so hard my scalp burned.

  My eyes sprang open. He dragged the blankets away, crushing me beneath his weight. He pushed his filthy mouth against mine so I couldn’t get any air, forcing his tongue so far into my mouth I gagged. He pushed my nightie up my body, lifting himself up somehow on an elbow while he pulled at my underpants. And then … then he shoved his rough, filthy finger inside me, the friction burning as he moved against my body.

  Nice and fresh, he hissed. Unspoilt.

  The strange metallic sound of Skye’s voice. Leave her alone.

  He laughed and I learned what it means for your blood to run cold.

  Leave her alone. I’ll do whatever you want. Skye’s voice, barely more than a whimper.

  His body stilled. Sandpaper stubble scraped against my cheekbone as he turned his head. Well that’s an offer too good to refuse. I’ll save it for another night. When I’ve got you to myself.

  He pushed himself upright. Pressed his foot against my stomach. You’re off the hook, he said, but I know where you live, and if you tell anyone about our little secret I’ll come through your window one night and you’ll get the same thing she does before I slit your throats and bury you both where no one will ever find you.

  Air rushed into my lungs. I wanted to be sick. I wanted to vomit. I wanted to run.

  The sound of a zip. A belt buckling up. And then he was gone.

  I shivered uncontrollably beneath the sheets, bile in my throat, a spasm in my gut as if he was still standing there with the heel of his boot against my middle. Everything hurt from trying so hard to disappear. I swallowed hard, covered my mouth with my hands and opened my eyes.

  He was gone.

  But Skye …

  My mind lurched to what he’d done to her. I pushed myself upright and peered across to her bed. She wasn’t moving. I whispered her name. No reply. Skye. Please talk to me. Tell me if you’re okay. I sniffed, my face a mess of tears and snot.

  Go to sleep, she said
, don’t talk or he’ll come back. That same dead tone in her voice as before. She said it like she knew. Go to sleep.

  She rolled away from me and I lay there in the darkness, his voice in my ear.

  I know where you live, I know where you live, I know where you live.

  Tess dropped the pen to the table and stared down at the scrawl on the pages. Small patches of the paper were wrinkled, some of the words smudged. She swiped at her cheek. All this time she’d never cried, never thought about it long enough to let herself, but now the tears wouldn’t stop. There was still more to write. The day after the night before.

  I didn’t stay for breakfast. Even though my stomach was empty, I felt too sick to eat. Skye wouldn’t speak. She said she wanted to be alone, but she walked part of the way home with me. We stopped walking outside Mrs Lennon’s house and the perfume of the roses made me feel worse. My eyelids were so sore. I’d made myself stay awake, in case the door opened again, the echo of his voice burrowing in my brain like a parasite.

  Skye was white, transparent. More ghost than girl. Please, Tess, please promise you won’t say anything.

  What I wanted to say was stuck somewhere between my brain and my mouth. Not telling was wrong. I dropped to my knees and fell across the top of the fence, heaving into the dirt. I lay my cheek against the cool concrete. I’d walked along this fence when I was younger, practising my balance, one foot in front of the other like a high-wire acrobat. I so badly wanted to be that little girl again. Couldn’t we just go back in time and forget everything about last night?

  Say a thing and I’ll kill you both.

  His stinking breath still lingered in my nostrils.

  His rasping voice still vibrated through every cell of my body.

  The feel of his hand between my legs, his fingers pushing inside me, still scalded.

  I forced myself upright. Skye stared directly into my eyes, repeating her question without saying a word.

  Okay. I drew an X across my heart the way we used to when we were little. All those years ago. I promise.

  Every breath of air seemed to leave Skye’s body. And we’ll never, ever talk about it again, she said.

  I watched a bull ant drag a struggling moth along the concrete fence. Not telling would be safer for us both. And if we didn’t talk about it, it would be like it never happened, wouldn’t it?

  Skye waited at the corner while I walked the rest of the way home, but when I reached our driveway and turned around to wave goodbye she was already gone.

  The convulsing in her stomach was sharp and insistent. She dropped the pen, bolted to the sink, knocking over the chair, the wooden legs clamouring against the floorboards. Over and over again she vomited, her chest on fire, her shoulders jarring, sweat beading her forehead, until she was completely and utterly spent. She kept her eyes closed for a minute before she turned on the tap, slurped in a mouthful of water and spat it back into the sink. She splashed her face and wiped her chin with the back of her hand before turning off the tap and inhaling a long, slow breath. Although her body was still shaking, the worst of it was over.

  One careful step at a time she returned to the table and righted the chair, holding onto the frame for support. She’d made such a noise, yet somehow Grace was still sleeping, her long curls floating out across the pillow.

  Behind her was the wardrobe.

  Inside the wardrobe was the box.

  And in the box, the envelope and the newspaper clippings.

  He has a daughter.

  The man who had violated her best friend—multiple times, Tess knew without having to be told—was alive and living in Melbourne, passing himself off as a pillar of the community, a bastion of family values. Somehow Skye had found out about him, about his life. What had she been planning to do with the information? She’d come all the way out here so he would never find her. Had turned her life inside out to protect her child.

  Those images in the shed: Skye had painted her pain and literally locked it away.

  All these years Tess had gagged and bound herself so tightly she’d stayed silent even when she’d known her friend was in danger. It had been so convenient to convince herself she was just keeping a promise. But that was a lie. An excuse. She’d been a coward. Too afraid to tell anyone what had happened that night in case he made good on his threat, sleeping with a night light like a three-year-old all these years because she was too afraid to open her eyes in the dark. Never in all this time had she allowed herself to think about what Skye’s words that night had meant: I’ll do whatever you want. The sacrifice her friend had made to save Tess suffering in the same way.

  Now Skye was gone. Possibly had taken her own life because of him and without ever getting justice for what he’d done to her—what he could have done to other girls, what he could still do to girls like his own daughter. Like Grace.

  Blood ran hot through her veins. If he thought he was going to get away with passing himself off as someone who deserved a seat in government he was oh so wrong. The only place he was worthy of was a jail cell.

  She took one last look at Grace as she walked around the end of the bed. So like her mother, even in sleep. Reaching up, she retrieved the key from its hiding place on the top of the wardrobe and with one flick of the wrist she opened the door, removed the box and headed back to the kitchen. Finally, she was going to make things right.

  Twenty-one

  She slid the photocopied article onto the table, ironing it out with the heel of her hand. One by one she pulled the other documents out of the envelope. More copies of news stories detailing Harrison’s business dealings, wins in local politics and his aspirations of being elected to state parliament. The photos were a joke. So believable in his smart suits, holding his wife’s hand in one photo, his daughter’s in another. God, how it must have repulsed Skye to see these images, to read what a success he’d made of himself while she’d spent her life dodging his shadow.

  How was it possible for such a predator to hide who he really was?

  A violent trembling started up in her legs and she lowered herself into the chair as the answer came to her unbidden. Whatever it was inside her that was her actual self—her being, her soul—shrivelled up into an embryo. She waited. A second, a minute, an hour, however long it took for it to uncoil, poking its finger into the bony centre of her chest.

  The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

  Those well-known words she’d first heard in her senior history class came back to her now with a much more personal resonance. She had done nothing. Harrison had gotten away with his evil because she had done nothing, because Skye did nothing. He’d bullied them into silence and they’d complied.

  Pins pricked at her scalp as the two brief conversations she’d ever had with Skye about that night played themselves back. The very next day, paralysed by her own fear, how easy it had been to say yes to Skye’s request. Even at Jean’s funeral when Skye had begged her to take care of Grace, how convenient it had been to agree once more then walk back into her neat, organised life and not think about it again. To act like it had never happened.

  But Skye could never forget. And here was the proof.

  Tess reached inside the envelope and unfolded a multi-page document, the hitch of her breath echoing in the eerie quiet of the cottage. She flicked through the pages, then turned back to the front, her eyes zeroing in on the typed heading at the top. NSW Police Force, and underneath, Statement of Witness. Skye Whittaker. And right there in typed print the name of the man she was accusing of sexual assault.

  Neil Harrison.

  So, Skye had been to the police. The date recorded on the top right-hand side of the page was 28 April 2018, just two months before her death. Tess skimmed the rest of the page, registering the multiple assaults recorded, not just during those months, but during three other time periods when Harrison had stayed at the house.

  The way-too-familiar taste of bile filled her throat.


  So Skye actually had reported the bastard. Had he been arrested? There was only one way to find out. The statement had been given at Weerilla Police Station and it was signed by a Constable Turner.

  Tess glanced at the clock through bleary eyes. Nothing could be done now, and as much as she didn’t want to wrangle the beast of sleep, she needed to get some rest. She folded the papers back up and placed them in the envelope, taking it into the bedroom with her and leaving it on the bedside table. Her boots had been discarded hours ago, but right now she didn’t have the energy to change. She climbed under the doona fully clothed and stared at the stars stuck to the ceiling, keeping her mind fixed on them, counting them over and over. Wishes that would never come true.

  The last time she’d been in a police station was in her first year of uni when she’d been rounded up with the rest of the crew for being drunk and disorderly on the streets of Newtown. They’d been thrown into a cell to sleep it off. It had reeked of disinfectant, certainly less nauseating than it had smelled after her friend—what was her name again?—had puked all over the floor. None of it quite as frightening as her mother’s meltdown when she’d come to collect her. Luckily, this station in Weerilla bore absolutely no resemblance to that inner-city lock-up. It was more like something from the set of an iconic Australian movie: a red brick house complete with a huge bare-branched tree in the front yard and daffodils about to burst into flower along the regency-green timber fence. If it wasn’t for the electric-blue ‘police’ sign above the window, she would have walked right on past.