The Other Side of Beautiful

by Kim Lock

  Pulling into the bottle-o, they bought one beer each, just like high-school kids.

  Mercy felt happy.

  Mercy’s heart was a hummingbird.

  She could see the rise and fall of Andy’s chest and, when she lay her palm over it, she could feel the heat of his skin. Around them was darkness; somewhere outside, beyond the edge of the low cliff, was the ocean.

  Andy’s breath blew warm on her neck, and when he wrapped her in his arms, she finally closed her eyes. Lightning flickered blue light behind her lids.

  He smelled of salt and earth and soap, and he was so warm and strong and he held her and she loved him in a way that made her feel like there was absolutely nothing else and there was only this, him, her, now.

  Stretching out her bare legs, Mercy crossed her ankles and said, ‘Your bed is much bigger than mine. And far more comfortable.’

  ‘That’s why I waited till now,’ Andy said. In the flickers from far-off lightning, his skin gleamed with a sheen of sweat. ‘I knew how fond you were of that van, and I knew you’d try and have your way with me in it.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Aye. And look, don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t have turned down a foam mattress if you were naked, but a lad’s got to have some standards.’

  Mercy shoved him, and he took her hand and kissed her palm.

  One hour remained until she had to be back at the airport. Her heart was a metronome in her chest.

  From the front seat, Wasabi whined.

  ‘Nope,’ Andy said to the dog. ‘Stay.’

  ‘Aw, poor Wasabi.’

  Andy shifted his weight towards her. ‘A lot can be accomplished in an hour.’

  ‘Oh really?’

  ‘Aye.’

  It turned out Andy was right.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  ‘If they cancel this flight,’ Mercy said, ‘I’ll be really screwed.’

  At the boarding gate the queue shuffled steadily forward, passengers yawning and muttering, aircrew smiling and welcoming as if it weren’t almost one am.

  It was when the queue was down to its last few passengers that Mercy felt a surge of fear. She turned to Andy.

  ‘Maybe I can’t do this.’

  Andy squeezed her hand. ‘You can. You already are.’

  ‘That’s what the midwives tell women in labour.’

  Andy shrugged. ‘It’s good advice for any situation, isn’t it?’

  Mercy’s eyes darted between the boarding gate and the other end of the terminal, towards the exit. She could feel her mind gearing up, goading her, ravelling. What if they cancelled the flight again? But even worse, she realised with a jolt, what if they didn’t? Then she would have to get on this plane.

  But she had to take this flight anyway. There was no time left. And right there, with that absolute and indisputable fact, a sick knot of anxiety began to gather within her. The knot grew, collecting its arsenal of self-criticism and self-loathing, her thoughts hurling themselves at her, barbed like arrows: What if it really was her fault? What if her best—what if she—really never could be good enough?

  Murderer.

  You little shit!

  Do something.

  Mercy breathed in, slowly. She exhaled, slowly. The airport began to tilt and she pressed her hand to her chest.

  And then she put her arms around Andy. Pressing her face into his neck, she closed her eyes. Andy’s arms wrapped around her and three thousand kilometres unfurled then folded up inside.

  ‘It was a pleasure meeting you, Doctor Mercy.’

  ‘And you, Andrew Macauley.’

  Mercy kissed him, then turned and walked towards her gate.

  ‘Mercy?’

  She paused. Her heart stalled.

  ‘I know you don’t have a house or even a campervan right now, but you’ve got Skype, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mercy said. ‘Call me.’

  Andy grinned, and Mercy stepped onto the jetway.

  Air travel might be convenient and far quicker than blurting up the highway in an almost forty-year-old van, but for Mercy, there was no avoiding the reality that it incorporated all the major stress triggers: confined spaces; close and prolonged contact with strangers; heights; speed; complete lack of control. An inability to flee, no matter how loudly you screamed or how desperately you begged. The whole irrevocability of it.

  Which were facts that hit Mercy fully when the doors were armed and cross-checked and the plane began to rock and shunt backwards: when it was too late to change her mind.

  Bending forward in her seat, belt digging into her hips, Mercy scrabbled for her bag. She dug around, releasing the stale scent of sweaty, salty clothes, until she found the little glass bottle.

  Skullcap. She unscrewed the lid and sniffed. Acrid and alcoholic, and something earthy. She squeezed the dropper bulb, drawing up a tube of treacle-coloured liquid. Mercy had known women who had sworn by herbal remedies, and she had spent many hours scoffing over the idea of witches’ potions and placebo effects, warning patients that just because herbs were natural didn’t mean they couldn’t be dangerous.

  The plane reached the top of the runway, and arced in a slow circle. Her heart smacked against her ribs.

  The engines began to whine, then rumble and roar. Mercy lifted her trembling hand and squeezed the entire dropper beneath her tongue. It burned like syringing petrol into her mouth and she coughed.

  Mercy was shoved back in her seat. The cabin rattled, lights blurred past the windows, then as the plane lifted its nose into the air, Mercy drew up and swallowed a second dropperful and the earth fell away beneath her.

  Fifteen minutes later, a 737 passed roughly overhead a Daihatsu Hijet stalled on the side of the Stuart Highway, with Home is wherever you ARE hand-painted on its side, three pistons seized in its cast-iron engine block, and a large female huntsman spider tucked behind the gas bottle. Already the van had been looted of its battery, spare wheel and wheel brace, single saucepan, box of cutlery and a can of baked beans in ham sauce.

  In the dark of night, the noise of the jet filtered to the ground and as it did, the rear bumper fell from the van and hit the gravel with a clang, but there was no one there to hear either the jet or the clang.

  Not that Mercy could see any of this from 28,000 feet above, of course. Not in the middle of the night. And not when she had her head tipped to the side, snoring lightly and fast asleep.

  ONE WEEK LATER

  Adelaide rang with the end of spring. Sunlight glinted off glass and a dry warmth swirled through the streets. Leaving the Magistrates Court building behind her, Mercy crossed Angas Street to the corner of Victoria Square and sat on a bench under a shady tree. Traffic hummed around the square.

  Mercy thought about certainty, and she thought about uncertainty. No matter how many experts are called to the witness stand, no matter how many letters grace the end of a person’s name, no matter how many years of experience one has elbow deep in the body fluids of life and death—all anyone can ever offer, with any certainty, is their best estimation. Once, it was sworn that the sun revolved around a stationary earth. Once, physicians believed a woman’s womb could wander around her body, wreaking havoc. Once, it was vowed that only foul-smelling air caused disease—the idea of microscopic germs was scorned. Beyond the certainty of relative uncertainty, Mercy thought, the only other truth is that some estimations—those of authority figures, the well-connected, men—will carry more weight than others.

  Mercy looked down at the patch of dirt worn into the grass and saw ants scurrying about. A discarded muesli bar wrapper skidded on the breeze to rest against her ankle. Her court shoes were black leather pumps with low heels that made a demure, sensible click when she walked. There was a smudge of soil across one toe, and she bent forward to wipe it off.

  What could Mercy be certain about? Well, she had known that the inquest would take more than one day, and it did—it took four. She knew that the Health Service’s solicitors were so prepared they d
ropped amniotic fluid embolism and disseminated intravascular coagulopathy as easily as asking for a gin and tonic at a bar. She knew that the family of Tamara Lee Spencer had looked frightened, angry and grieving at the start and confused, exhausted and still grieving by the end.

  The dusty smear of soil was now on Mercy’s fingertip. The muesli bar wrapper rocked in the breeze, threatening to skid away. Thinking of the turtles, Mercy trapped the wrapper beneath her heel.

  What couldn’t Mercy know for sure?

  She didn’t know how long her house would take to rebuild. It could be another four to six months—‘Maybe a bit more,’ the builder said, because he couldn’t be certain either.

  She didn’t know whether Eugene and Jose were broken up for good this time, and neither did Eugene. And therefore she didn’t know if his suggestion that Mercy and Wasabi could take his spare room again, if she needed, was fuelled by guilt or charity or maybe even loneliness.

  She didn’t know if anyone had explained to Tamara Lee Spencer’s family that their daughter, sister, mother, aunt, wife had died because sometimes, despite how incredibly unlikely it was, when amniotic fluid slips from the womb and enters the labouring woman’s bloodstream, medical science still doesn’t always know how to stop her heart and lungs from collapsing.

  Mercy considered the smear of brown dust on her fingertip.

  She knew it was okay that she was both sad and relieved about her mother’s death. She knew she would always grieve, but that her grief was complex and complicated and tied up not just in the loss of her mother but in the realisation that she would never experience a normal, loving mother–child relationship.

  With her thumb she rubbed the dirt from her fingertip into her skin. It seemed to disappear, but she knew it was still there, trapped in the tiny whorls of her fingers and palm. No one else would see it, but Mercy knew.

  Just like no one would know that the night Mercy’s house burned down, Mercy had stood in her hallway, watching flames lick the kitchen cabinets. Paint blistered and smoke pillowed across the ceiling and Mercy had stood watching, and felt a calm understanding come over her. A knowledge of exactly what she had to do. And what Mercy had to do was not scoop up Wasabi and flee the house, but push the dog outside and close the door behind him. And then Mercy had to turn around and walk back into her bedroom, closing the door behind her. Because that day, on the eve of her thirty-sixth birthday, she had reached a point, a critical end-point, where she could not stay stuck in her house any longer. But she couldn’t leave it, either. So there was nothing left to do but throw her hands in the air and leave it up to chance. To fate. Stay or go.

  And in the end, fate had said Go.

  The breeze snapped up, shaking the leaves above her and sending sparkles of sunlight raining down. Her phone buzzed.

  Hiya Dr M, how’d it go? xx

  Long, Mercy wanted to write. Awful. When it was over, her husband came up to me and his face was so writ with pain I actually took a step back, but then he hugged me. He cried. He said he had no idea that so many big words and technical sentences could be spoken that all came down, in the end, to ‘We did everything we could and we don’t know why it happened’. He said that sometimes it seems like we just have to accept that life makes decisions for you, and how will he ever be able to do that? I wanted to tell him: I don’t know, but I think being here, now, helps. And one day, maybe, you will find yourself on the other side of it.

  With her soil-gritty thumb, Mercy typed back:

  Hiya yourself. It’s over. Findings will take a couple of months but lawyers confident. Where r u now? xx

  The Kimberley. Darn nice. Quiet tho. xx

  Mercy smiled. She reached down and picked up the wrapper then stood, walked to the bin and deposited the rubbish. She wiped her hands on the seat of her crisp black pants. Tipping her face to the sun, she closed her eyes and imagined she could smell eucalyptus.

  A short tram ride away there was a vehicle dealership.

  Her savings would only last so long, and the sale from her newly rebuilt house would eventually run out, and then she would pick fruit, wipe tables, answer phones.

  But wherever she went, Mercy knew, of one thing she could be certain: wherever she was, at that moment, she was home.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I wish to respectfully thank the nations mentioned in this story, and the heartlands through which the protagonist travels on her journey. I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of these lands, and the lands on which I live and work, and pay respect to Elders past, present and future.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  First and foremost, my gratitude to Pippa Masson, for her wisdom, patience and unwavering faith. Thank you, also, to Caitlan Cooper-Trent, whose graciousness and expertise is always so welcome and fortifying, and to all at Curtis Brown Australia.

  To the incredible team at HarperCollins HQ: what a marvellous bunch you are! I extend tremendous gratitude to Jo Mackay for her immediate enthusiasm for this story, and to Rachael Donovan for her warmth, passion, and for shepherding the novel so skilfully into the world. Many thanks to Annabel Blay for her editorial prowess and care, also to Kylie Mason and Annabel Adair, Jo Munroe and Natika Palka. My admiration to Alex Hotchin for creating the stunning map, and to Christa Moffitt for a truly beautiful cover design.

  Apologies to residents of all the little towns along the Stuart Highway whose facilities I have misrepresented or invented entirely. Also thanks to any ‘Aussie Grey Nomads’ whose delightfully convivial caravan slogans I may have shamelessly appropriated.

  Thank you to the lovely ladies of the Barossa Libraries Lyndoch branch, who provided the most cheerful assistance and support, and never seemed to mind that I was perpetually in track pants. Deepest thanks to my friends at The Raven’s Parlour Bookstore, booksellers extraordinaire and stalwart supporters of local writers. And to the hardworking booksellers and librarians everywhere—thank you. I bow to you.

  My gratitude to Kat Clarke for her kind and sage assistance with representation of First Nations characters and country. Thank you to Ryan O’Neill for generous help in crafting Glaswegian dialogue (and curses). Thanks to Peter Lock for talking me through a broken muffler; Natasha Schubert for ‘two flat tyres and only one spare’; Ben Buck for providing a busted radiator hose and counting roadtrain wheels. All errors or stretches of truth are mine.

  To those who read things, offered advice, weathered my tears or tantrums, and/or provided much needed cheering and support: Bettina Engelhardt, Jayde Lock, Stace Lock, Sarah Ridout, and Les Zig (94pt)—thank you thank you thank you. Leisa Masters, dearest of dear friends, and Kelly Morgan, for so much tea and hugs and getting it. You all make every word easier and I am endlessly grateful.

  In loving memory of my friend Kevin Massey, who I think would have loved this story.

  My love to Ben, Addy and Leo, for always being so excited about everything book related. And the final and most resounding thanks must go to my mum, Julie Lock, who braved the very first gritty draft, never ceased encouraging, and laughed at all the appropriate moments. Thanks, Mum!

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  Overcome by crippling anxiety, Mercy often finds herself incapable of completing basic tasks or talking to strangers. Have you ever been in a position where fear has prevented you from performing a day-to-day task? How does Mercy’s perception of danger affect the relationship she has with herself? How does Mercy utilise her fight or flight mode?

  Mercy is an overly anxious, jittery and at times hectic person. How did the narration impact your reading experience? Did the narration change your perception of mental illness? Over the course of the book, did Mercy’s voice evolve? How did Mercy’s relationship with her mother restrict her life?

  The reader is taken on a wild ride through central Australia, from Adelaide to Darwin. The country’s landscape is mystified and glorified by its travellers. How did the journey colour your perception towards the Australian outback landscape? Did Mercy’s interactions with
the other campers reflect Australian culture?

  A brawny Scottish man, Andrew Macauley is full of laughter and a good natured spirit, even while being injured. How did Andy’s interactions with Mercy affect her outlook on the campervan lifestyle? Was Andy a positive influence? Do you believe that Mercy and Andy have the potential to continue their relationship?

  At the beginning of Mercy’s story, she has just lost her house and moved into her ex-husband’s spare bedroom, and only has her loyal puppy Wasabi to comfort her. How did this catastrophic event change the course of Mercy’s life? Was this change slow or rapid? How did her relationship with her ex-husband, Eugene, challenge and/or support her new lifestyle?

  Grief was a common thread throughout the story, from Mercy’s relationship with her mother to her patient dying. How has grief shaped Mercy’s life? How did uncovering Jenny Cleggett’s ashes spur her on to complete her journey? What was your reaction when you found out Jenny Cleggett was the mother of Harry, the old man who sold the Hijet to Mercy?

  Throughout the novel, Mercy challenges us to break outside our own self-inflicted walls. How has reading this story changed your perception of your own mental health? Have you ever felt bound in by society or the relationships we keep?

  ISBN: 9781867214915

  TITLE: THE OTHER SIDE OF BEAUTIFUL

  First Australian Publication 2021

  Copyright © 2021 Kim Lock

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher: