‘But I’m not a woman,’ Tara said. Then she laughed.
‘You’re not?’ Amusement glimmered in Amos’s eyes too.
‘I mean I’m not like other women. At all. I’m a . . . a . . . person.’
‘Yes. I can see that.’
‘I mean my upbringing, which I pretty much did myself, and my philosophies.’ Tara struggled for words. ‘They mean I sit outside the social boundaries of most women. If that makes sense.’
Amos nodded. ‘Perfect sense.’
Tara inclined her head and frowned. ‘So what are the cues you’re looking for?’
‘Oh, it’s silly really,’ he said. ‘Things like flicking hair, reaching out to touch me on the arm, watching my mouth.’
‘Are you for real? Watching your mouth? What? In case you dribble?’
Amos pulled a face. ‘The research is inaccurate and it’s all based on non-scientific observations. Dreadful. I Googled it for ages, each site more hopeless and contrived than the last.’
‘Oh for godsakes, Amos, that’s ridiculous.’
‘I know.’
There was a pause between them.
‘Do you want a cue?’
Amos nodded. ‘Yes. Desperately.’
Tara looked at him, a twinkle in her eye. She flicked her hair back over her shoulder as if she was in a shampoo commercial. She walked over and swiped her palm down his shoulder, then delivered a mockingly smouldering gaze at his mouth.
‘Oh, Tara, stop taking the piss out of me. Just shut up and kiss me.’
‘OK,’ she said.
A smile danced across his handsome face before they came together in an embrace, their hearts forming one rhythm, their breath melding as one. Amos looked into her eyes, leaning closer and closer.
‘I’ve waited for so long,’ he almost whispered.
‘Same,’ Tara said. ‘You and your stupid cues.’
‘You and your non-woman mannerisms.’
And then they kissed. At last. The kiss ignited a thousand years of longing. A thousand stars twinkling in a night sky. It was the kiss that set the future blazing on ahead with possibility. They felt their souls meld and fuse. In that moment the world came into balance. Gently, slowly at first, then with the gathering frenzy of a flooding river, Amos began to peel her clothing away.
Later that night, in Tara’s big cloud-like bed upstairs, they slept together naked, limbs entwined, breath in sync, bodies satisfied and hearts filled to overflowing with love. But as the moon slid on by outside, Tara woke with a jolt and sat up.
‘Elsie,’ she breathed.
She stared at the night sky outside the big arched window, then turned to shake Amos awake. ‘I know now,’ she said, her eyes turning back to the glow of the moon.
‘What?’ Amos mumbled sleepily, propping himself up on one elbow. ‘What do you know?’
‘It’s not going to work. The universe won’t allow it to work unless we are all back in balance.’
‘Tara, what are you talking about? Are you sleep-talking?’
Over time Amos would become used to Tara’s night-time revelations and spoken epiphanies. He would come to see them as normal, making notes on what she said during her episodes of insight, but on this, his first night with her, she was scaring him a little. He reached out and pulled her face around to his. Her eyes were wide, as if she was awake but not seeing him. She smiled gently.
‘Zac. Elsie. Their hearts are broken. Their spirits shattered. Elsie is leaving us.’
‘What?’
‘Yes,’ Tara said as if in a half-waking daze. ‘But no.’ She shook her head and her rich hair tumbled over her shoulders, her skin lit softly by a white moon that now only just peeked from behind a cloud. ‘Their soul journey is one. Their scarring is one. I have to go get her. I have to go find her and bring her back.’
‘To America? But you’ve only just . . .’
Before he finished his sentence, Tara was already getting up, dragging on her dressing gown.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Going to the garden.’
‘To do what?’
At the doorway Tara glanced back at him, her eyes glinting with some kind of ancient wisdom and knowing. ‘To call her back.’
Getting up, Amos went to the large attic window. Below in the moonlight he watched Tara tread barefoot across the grass, settling herself cross-legged under a woollen blanket in the middle of one of the curving lawns. Should he go to her? Was she really leaving again? Now they were together, he didn’t want to lose her. Not for a second. Especially not to the United States on some mad mission to find Elsie, who was in a world of her own now. He gathered up a quilt from the bed and went out to join her. He knew he wanted her home, forever.
Zac couldn’t sleep. He turned over. Maybe the cricket was on the radio, broadcast from India. If it was, he could do a little more on the Nicholsons’ Jeep and listen to the match. What was the point of lying in bed with his mind revving? He got up, dragged on his jeans and padded out to the workshop. He flicked on the light and sleepily began to set parts out on the bench. He turned the radio on at the wall.
‘Bloody oath, Dad,’ Zac grumbled. His father always moved it off the ABC onto the Rington local station just so he could get his country-music fix. Zac twirled the dial, and suddenly through the static he could hear her voice. He recognised it instantly and turned up the song. She was singing about learning to love the skin you’re living in. In his years on Haiti, Zac had managed to avoid most of the celebrity news on Elsie and had hardly even heard much of her music. Now, though, here she was. She was amazing.
Zac touched his finger to the scar on his face and thought of the frail, fearful girl so terrified of her own inner beauty and of being rejected because of a mole on her face. She was here, in his memory. So real. She was the first girl he had kissed. She was the first girl he had loved and he knew, at this moment, she would be the last. All those signs Tara banged on about. This was one. This was the moment when he would go to her and track her down so that he no longer lived in this limbo. Even if she rejected him and even if he was thrown out on his arse by her minders, at least he would’ve finished the chapter he’d been stuck on for years and years.
The song faded out and the announcer’s voice came on. ‘Ah, EJ, EJ, EJ, such a great, great song.’ The announcer sighed. ‘Already sadly a classic, folks. It was her last song. It’s been confirmed by her management that our Aussie country-rock goddess EJ is in a coma in a Nashville hospital after a drug overdose. The doctors are waiting for her family to approve turning off the life-support system. Guess the little angel from Culvert, New South Wales, has left the building.’ Elvis’s ‘Love Me Tender’ sighed from the speakers and Zac’s vision began to blur.
Fifty-six
‘Tara? I’m not Tara? Who’s Tara? It’s me, Jacinta.’
Elsie looked about the room for faces of people she loved. People she had seen from that other realm. Zac. Tara. Amos. Gwinnie. Elvis. But all she could see now was the tight gaunt face of Jacinta.
‘Oh. Not Tara. Hello,’ Elsie said simply, still feeling the all-enveloping love of the other side.
‘Hello,’ Jacinta said, scrunching her face, confused. ‘Shall I get a doctor? Are you sure you’re alive? I mean awake?’ She was not good at this sort of thing.
Elsie didn’t seem to hear her.
‘That rehab ranch Charity went to,’ Elsie said with a rasping throat.
Jacinta tilted her head. WTF? The girl had been dead, for Chrissakes! Dead! They had turned off the machines, taken out the tubes. She’d just lain there. Like Sleeping fucking Beauty, Jacinta thought. And here she was awake, talking to her. It was lucky she hadn’t yet sent out EJ’s obituary to the media, nor called in her team to get the music artists lined up for the tribute album.
‘The ranch? Yes?’ Jacinta said, her mind spinning.
‘Did it sort her out?’
‘What?’ Jacinta asked, trying to drag her mind back to EJ. The alive EJ.
‘Rehab? Did it work for her?’
‘Kinda. Some things about Charity will never be sorted, but if you’re asking if it got her off the pills and booze, yes. It did.’
Elsie fingered the waffle hospital coverlet. ‘Could you book me in, please?’
Jacinta cast her a smile that held no warmth. ‘Sure.’
‘Oh, and Jacinta.’
‘Yes, honey?’
‘Could you also tear up my contract, please? Sell everything, take your cut. I’m done.’
Jacinta stiffened, then turned on her motherly persona. ‘Now, my dear,’ she soothed, ‘I know you’ve had a close call, but there’s no need to give up your —’
Elsie held up her hand. She had an aura of calm about her. She could still feel the light of life swirling around her body.
‘Crikey.’ She giggled, looking wondrously at her upheld hand. ‘I’ve woken up feeling like I’m Jesus!’ While Jacinta looked at her as if she was totally crazy, Elsie held her wonder. It is true, she thought incredulously, we are all pieces of God! We are all the children of God. Except now she knew God wasn’t a man with a long beard in a white gown, nor was he any of the other gods humans had conceived outside themselves. And he certainly wasn’t a He with a capital H. God was simple Love with a capital L. It filled her now.
‘Are you high still?’ Jacinta asked, her gold chains jangling on her wrist as she tossed her hair back over her Yves Saint Laurent scarf-covered shoulder.
‘I have never been more high in my life, nor more grounded,’ Elsie said. ‘Jacinta, I’m grateful for what you’ve done. When I was dead, because believe you me, I know I was dead, I saw how you are a part of my journey and my learning. I saw you kick me and swear at me when I was unconscious. I saw you arguing to turn off the life-support machines. You even called me a bitch. And I know you were withholding the news about my father and my mother dying until you’d seen me do the gig.’
Jacinta opened her mouth, her expression one of horror, though Elsie’s voice was light. It held no trace of accusation or blame.
‘Let me finish,’ Elsie said. ‘But out there, wherever I was, I saw clearly that I need to take a new direction. I was told. Shown. And that direction is away from what I’m doing now. Away from you.’
Jacinta’s mouth screwed from side to side. She could tell Elsie was somehow utterly altered. There would be no bribing or coercing her now. Plus there was one question screaming in her mind: How? How did Elsie know these things? She had been clinically dead!
‘I get it,’ Jacinta said, trying to pull some composure in around herself. ‘But you’ll have to pay me my dues. For the rest of your life in royalties. It’s all there in black and white.’
‘I’m sure it is, Jacinta. But now I know it’s not all about money and fame. Now I know I truly have a gift to give the world and I’m going to do it.’
Elsie extended her arms up. She felt weak physically, but inside her there was a torrent of strength like the base of a waterfall catching rainbows and casting beams of extraordinary light.
‘Now give me a goodbye hug,’ Elsie said.
Like a plastic doll that only bent in the middle, Jacinta hinged herself over and put her arms around Elsie.
She felt like steel under Elsie’s hands.
‘I’m sorry,’ Elsie said. ‘And I’m grateful for the lessons. And I hope you can heal yourself from this point on.’
‘What are you?’ Jacinta asked, pulling away. ‘Some kinda born-again Christian?’
Elsie smiled. ‘No. I haven’t got a religious bone in my body. But what I do know now is I am lucky enough to have my body, my breath and above all my spirit and soul back where they should be, and I intend to use that to help this planet and others heal. And at the same time have a damn good time. A good time that doesn’t need drugs or drink or money.’
‘Good luck with that,’ Jacinta said coldly. She was already backing out of the room, reaching for her phone, getting her lawyers all lined up to cash in as much as she could on EJ’s legacy. Her next call would be to arrange sponsorship of another talent show, this time in South America. There would be some young talented beauties down there she could manufacture for the world. Elsie watched her go.
Poor Jacinta, Elsie thought, sending her on her way with love.
Ten days later a blue sky brushstroked with fine white clouds greeted Elsie as she stepped out on the large porch, cup of tea in hand. It was her seventh morning at the Tennessee recovery ranch on the outskirts of Nashville and she could barely contemplate just how beautiful it was here. She sat down on the swing seat that was nestled in a sunny corner of the eggshell-blue homestead. Trump, the Border Collie, tiptoed up the steps to her, wagging his tail and smiling a doggie smile at her, asking for a pat. Elsie looked out over the swathe of green pastures that rolled down towards a river and took a moment to remember Marbles.
She sipped on her tea and smiled. It was so peaceful. She was so peaceful. From the moment Elsie dumped her bag on the bed at the ranch that first day, she knew she’d never touch drugs again. She had been altered completely by her near-death experience and could now see her addiction. It was an addiction to her utterly negative view of herself, and to being a vulnerable little girl with an emotionally unavailable father and mother. The drugs weren’t important to her now. Nor was the lifestyle she’d been living. It was time to follow her true calling, which was still of course music, but also the land. And it was time to forgive herself. To forgive her parents. To seek forgiveness from those she’d hurt. To buy some time to work out how she was going to achieve the next chapter of her life.
The recurring dreams came in varying forms, but all pointed her towards Grassmore: images of her mum and dad, standing in long wavering pastures. She hugged her knees to her chest, resting her feet on the floral cushion of the porch swing. She thought of the girl who’d given her that last pill, who had died in her arms. Jacinta might have kept that part of the awful night out of the papers, but Elsie would never forget it. Her lawyers were figuring out a way to get money to the girl’s family anonymously — not because it would heal their grief, but because Elsie wanted less money in her own life, and it was one of the many ways she would achieve that.
She thought of all the young people on drugs: the ones who died; the ones who only ever half lived. The people shut away in houses addicted to food or television, like Tara’s mum. People addicted to gambling and pornography and the suffering of others, like Dwaine. She thought of the poverty in the world. The slums. The misery. The child abuse. It was such a dark world if you looked at it that way, but Elsie had been shown another way. It was now up to her to live that way, thereby inspiring others. She thought of the magical moment she’d had yesterday evening on Cherokee, a thickset sage-like ranch horse, as she rode silently through the river, following Lee, the ranch rehab mentor. She had looked up and seen an eagle soaring above her. As the sun touched her face, Elsie vowed to live well, gratefully, mindfully and in love. Love with a capital L.
Now on the porch, with the day unfolding, she could see how her music had given something to people — she had just been too hard on herself to see it. And now she knew she had so much more to give. She looked skywards and felt excitement on her skin. She was ready to truly embrace her gifts and make a positive difference to the planet.
As she thought this, Lee stepped out on the porch, his big cowboy hat jammed down on his head.
‘Better pack your bag,’ he said through the veil of his downturned moustache.
‘But I’m not out till next week.’
Lee shrugged. ‘Had a phone call from a lady says you’re goin’ today.’
‘If it’s Jacinta, tell her I’m not going. No way. I’m never going back.’
Lee stooped to stroke the ear of the dog. ‘Suit yourself. You leave when you’re ready. Don’t let no one push you round no more.’ He extended the toe of his boot and pushed the swing so it rocked Elsie back and forth. He winked at her. ‘You’re doin’ good,
soldier. Group Therapy’s on at eight. See you in there.’
He stepped off the porch and Trump fell in behind his Cuban heels, on their way to the barn. As he did, Elsie remembered her mother’s advice on the other side that she would be healed. She looked at the drift of clouds shaped like wisped wings of angels and knew from her inner core her life was healed.
Elsie was just sitting down to lunch with the rehab group in the communal kitchen, enjoying the banter and companionship, when she heard a car drive to the front of the house, music trailing in with it. It was her own voice. Her hit song of ten years earlier.
‘I got nothin’ to do, all day to do it. Could save the world, I’ll get round to it,’ the old Elsie sang from the car radio.
She set down her knife and fork and pushed back her chair. She looked out the window over the sink.
In the drive, in a rust-bucket blue convertible with a silver grinning grill, sat two tall men in cowboy hats and a pretty woman with long wavy flame-red-brown hair. All of them were smiling. They cut the engine. The song cut off too, and Elsie watched in amazement as the men got out, each a mirror of the other. Broad shoulders, tapered waists. Country boys, from the looks of their clothes. Different clothes but identical bodies. One of them lifted his hat and revealed what looked like scarring on one side of his face. Zac! Elsie let out a cry, tears emerging suddenly in her eyes. She flew from the kitchen, tore down the steps and ran to them, squealing with joy.
‘Whaaaaat?!’ she screamed, leaping first at Tara and swirling her around in a hug. Then she swamped both boys in a wild embrace. ‘What? What? Whaaaaat?!’ They all held hands in a circle and jumped up and down together like primary-school kids, grinning at each other like idiots. Laughing hysterically. On the porch, Lee and the rehab guests watched with amusement and emotion.
‘What are you doing here?’ she half screamed.
Tara looked at Elsie with a big smile. ‘Picking you up. Taking you on a road trip. It’s time to get the Poo Crew back together.’
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