Things We Cannot See

by Dianne Maguire

  Alex flicked him an almost intimate glance and Fullavit smiled back at her in a way that made Maddi cringe.

  ‘Has there been any news from the police yet?’ Fullavit said, suddenly serious.

  ‘No, there hasn’t. But they’re working very hard and have some good leads.’

  ‘Have you seen anything, like, had any more nightmares or flashbacks?’ he said.

  Maddi glanced around, acutely aware that everyone was deserting the grounds for classes. She gave Alex’s sleeve a gentle tug.

  ‘No, nothing new,’ Alex said, ignoring her. ‘All I see is a tall person in a dark ski mask taking big steps towards me.’ She clenched her lips in brave resignation and tucked her hair behind her ear.

  ‘Well, keep me posted, won’t you, Alex? I really want to help,’ Fullavit said, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze with his hairy hand and scurrying up the steps ahead.

  ‘He is soooo not attractive,’ Maddi whispered, walking faster as he disappeared into the building ahead of them.

  ‘You’re the only chick in the entire school that thinks so – including all the mothers,’ Alex said with what Maddi interpreted as an air of superiority.

  Moments later, as she fossicked through her locker, Alex whispered, ‘I reckon even Ms Hosking is hot for Clive, I mean, Mr Fuller.’

  ‘Yeah? What was all that crap about hot chocolate?’ Maddi said, suddenly seeing a much older woman glare back at her from inside Alex’s eyes.

  ‘I saw them together at Swiss Chalet when I was with Laura yesterday,’ Alex said in a tone Maddi could not fathom.

  ‘And why are you calling him by his first name? Did he tell you to do that?’

  Alex turned to Maddi with the look of someone who was barely able to tolerate the moron in front of them. ‘It is totally none of your business,’ she sneered.

  ‘You completely change around him, Alex. You need to get a grip. So what if he’s hot for Ms Hosking? They’re both adults. It’s totally none of your business,’ Maddi said, grabbing her books and closing her locker door with more force than intended.

  ‘He’s not hot for Ms Hosking, even if she’s hot for him. They’re just friends,’ Alex said.

  ‘Well, I don’t care what he does to Ms Hosking and neither should you.’

  Alex’s face twisted. ‘You can be a bitch sometimes, Maddi. You know that? You’re jealous because he’s attracted to me and not you,’ she spat.

  Maddi grabbed her friend’s arm. ‘That’s bullshit, Alex. Adults are not attracted to kids unless they’re seriously weird.’

  ‘Well, maybe that’s the difference,’ Alex said, shrugging off Maddi’s hand. ‘Maybe he doesn’t see me as a kid.’ Her eyes burned like lasers into Maddi’s before she turned and stormed into the classroom.

  No matter how hard she tried, Maddi could not lose herself in the English lesson, even though it was usually one of her favourites. Her argument with Alex, the venom she saw in her friend’s eyes and heard in her voice, had wheedled its way like a hot needle into the core of her mind. By the end of the lesson Maddi had decided she could not allow a dropkick like Fullavit to come between her and her best friend.

  ‘Alex, I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight, OK?’ she said, amid the chaos of everyone in the class scrambling in their lockers for break time snacks. She watched Alex, her expression bland, her jaw stubbornly set, closing her locker door and refusing to acknowledge Maddi’s heartfelt apology, or indeed her very presence. Maddi’s heart sank at realising her wish that Fullavit would not come between them may be entirely beyond her control.

  ‘Then quit saying things you know nothing about,’ Alex said, pushing back at kids who jostled her. Once they were outside she turned to Maddi, her voice and eyes softening. ‘We will be sweet if you don’t talk about Mr Fuller, OK? Never. You promise?’

  ‘OK. I promise,’ Maddi said, her fingers crossed behind her back as they wandered towards the rotunda for morning break.

  ‘Was Laura coming to see you today?’ Maddi asked at lunch time, sitting beside Alex at a long table in the lunch hall, its yellow tiled floor shining under the fluorescent lights, switched on to counter the suddenly grey day outside.

  ‘No. Why?’ Alex said, biting into her ham and tomato sandwich.

  Maddi unwrapped her salad roll. ‘When I was coming back from the toilets I saw a car with loads of aerials like hers. It’s in the parking lot now. I reckon it is an unmarked police car.’

  ‘It’s not always about me when the police show up, Maddi.’ Alex made a face and checked no one was listening.

  ‘Just saying.’

  Since Alex’s attack the pendulum of the A Team’s reactions towards them had settled somewhere in the middle, after lurching from belittling hostility before the attack to extraordinary comradeship after. Chloe seemed to have accepted Alex, and indeed Maddi, as quasi members of her team, much to the chagrin of some of the others. So as Alex and Maddi made their way across the lawns after lunch, grumbling about having to return to classes, and Chloe and her team caught up with them, no one thought much about it. Until Rose, the tall one with the pin-sized head, turned to Alex. ‘Did you know your boyfriend is in the shits with the police?’

  Chloe rolled her eyes, grabbed Rose’s sleeve. ‘Leave it, Rose, for Chrissakes,’ she said, breaking into a trot, the others following.

  Maddi shook her head. ‘What was she talking about?’ she said once they were out of earshot.

  ‘Who knows? Who cares?’ Alex said with a frown.

  Moments later, Fullavit appeared like a man on a mission as he ran down the steps of the administration building and across the lawns towards them.

  ‘Hi, Mr Fuller,’ Alex said, the smile slipping from her face as he tore past without a word to either of them.

  With eye-watering astonishment, Maddi watched Alex run after him, eventually catching him by the arm. He turned to Alex, his face twisted with anger, and after what appeared a terse exchange, Alex ran back, swiping her eyes with her sleeve.

  ‘What’s up?’ Maddi said, bewildered.

  ‘None of your business,’ Alex spat without slowing as she scurried towards the classroom.

  Maddi ran to keep pace with her, uncertain what to do, not knowing what to think or feel. Knowing only that what she had just witnessed was very wrong.

  The home bell could not come soon enough for Maddi, looking back on the bizarre day this had turned out to be. Alex had not spoken to her since lunch, or even at the end of the day while they had changed back into their uniforms after PE. Now, about to pass through the gates together after a blisteringly silent walk from the classroom, Maddi’s mind scrambled for ways she could soothe the tension between them before they each went their separate ways home.

  Alex stopped. ‘You go on home without me,’ she told Maddi. ‘There’s something I forgot to do.’ She turned without another word and sprinted across the lawns.

  Stunned, Maddi watched Alex run towards the science lab and disappear into the building.

  Once home, Maddi unlocked their front door into the glass entranceway. The house was cold inside, made even chillier by the dismal silence and the grey of the swimming pool outside. She flicked the air-conditioner on to heat, wishing for at least one parent to be at home. She needed to talk – not just about Alex and what was happening for her, but about what had turned out to be an astoundingly surreal day. She sighed and wandered to the kitchen, dropping her bag on the bench and bending into the fridge, finding only fruit and bread when she craved junk food. She grabbed up a packet of chocolate biscuits from the pantry, the sound of running water as she filled the kettle echoing off the walls of the house.

  Dropping down onto a stool at the breakfast bar she stared out at a pair of doves, seemingly unaware or uncaring of her presence as they dipped and cooed and circled each other on the stone patio outside. ‘Even the bloody birds are at it,’ she muttered as she watched, bizarrely reminded of what Alex had done with Colb
y Pallins. How Alex had regretted it because of how toxic it had all become. And yet, here she was on the brink of being drawn into something even more sinister with Fullavit. Maddi’s stomach dropped like a plane in turbulence at the thought of someone as smart as Alex being conned by someone like Fullavit. She wondered whether her friend had at some stage unknowingly flirted with her attacker as well. Whether he was in fact someone known to her. Or just a person in the street who had discerned that extra something Alex had that made her more noticeable to men. Immediately berating herself for the thought, she pushed it aside. No one deserves to be taken advantage of by people like Colby and Fullavit and the masked attacker, especially not Alex, who has so much to give and who so obviously wants someone of her own to love, she thought, jumping from the stool and running to the screaming kettle.

  She gazed out at the grey pool rather than tackling her maths homework, about to dial Alex yet again when it suddenly occurred to her that yes, of course, Alex would be working at the store tonight. ‘That’s why she’s not returning my calls,’ Maddi said, biting into another biscuit, brushing the crumbs from her textbook and finally settling down to her homework.

  That night, Alex’s message came as Maddi and her parents stretched out on leather lounges in their home theatre. Are you awake?

  Leaping from the lounge and dialling Alex’s number, Maddi rushed towards her bedroom.

  ‘Do you want us to pause the movie?’ Andrew called after her.

  ‘Andrew, it’s Alex. They’ll be ages,’ Jayne intercepted, laying a hand on his arm and giving him one of her looks.

  ‘No, I may be a while. It’s fine, thanks, Dad,’ Maddi called.

  ‘How was Isaac tonight?’ Maddi said once Alex answered.

  ‘I don’t have a clue. I’m steering clear of him, remember?’ she said with a barb of defensiveness.

  ‘Did you ring Laura Nesci about his backpack?’ Maddi said.

  ‘What are you? My mother or something? No, I didn’t ring Laura. It sounds really lame ringing her just to tell her that Isaac has a backpack.’

  ‘But she told you—’

  ‘Maddi, it’s cool,’ Alex interjected. ‘Laura’s ringing me tomorrow – I’ll tell her then.’

  Maddi searched her mind in the silence that followed for the best way of asking the question that had been burning inside her all night. Finally she decided to say it straight out. The very worst thing that could happen would be that Alex would drop her as a friend – and frankly that was becoming an increasingly attractive option. She willed her voice to sound normal despite her thumping heart. ‘Um, I’ve been thinking about why you ran off after school today. What did you have to do?’ Maddi said.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Did you go and see Fulla – Mr Fuller?’

  ‘So what if I did?’

  ‘What did he say?’

  Alex sighed. ‘He told me he was very disappointed and hurt by my actions.’ She took a deep shuddering breath with the thickness of voice that comes when tears threaten. ‘The whole time we were talking, he was looking outside the door of the science lab, like he was terrified someone might see us. He told me I’d caused serious trouble for him with the police, that I’d made them think he was being inappropriate. He told me to stay away from him if I didn’t want him to lose his job.’

  ‘What’s he on about? You haven’t said anything against him to the police, have you?’

  ‘No, of course not. I’ve only said good things about him.’ She sniffed and Maddi imagined her again wiping tears away with her sleeve. ‘I don’t know what to do, Maddi,’ she said. ‘I really care for him and I know he cares for me.’

  Maddi bit her tongue. Pushed back the urge to be out with it – to tell Alex that the way she acted around Fullavit was not normal. That now was the perfect opportunity to be like a normal student towards him. ‘Maybe you should talk to Laura Nesci about him,’ Maddi suggested. ‘In any event, it’s just a matter of time, Alex. If he really is the caring teacher you say, he won’t hold this against you for long.’

  Maddi felt a stab of relief at Alex’s silence, heartened by the possibility that she was finally listening. Finally making sensible choices. ‘Have you heard any more about Roger?’ she said.

  ‘Yeah. Mrs Quarterman came into the store this afternoon and said they think a gang bashed him,’ Alex said. ‘They threw eggs all over his windows and across the verandah. I don’t think Greg would do that.’

  Maddi conjured up the vision of Greg Shepherd in his Armani suit chucking eggs at Roger’s house from the footpath, jumping on him in attack mode the moment Roger stepped out of the door. ‘I don’t think he would either,’ Maddi said. ‘You know, don’t you, that things will be normal again as soon as they get the guy who attacked you. You just need to hang in there for a bit longer.’

  Again a wave of relief washed over her. But after several moments it seemed that the silence between them had gone on for far too long. ‘Alex? Are you OK?’ Maddi waited. Shook her phone. Checked the signal. Shook her phone again. ‘Alex? Are you still there? Quit messing around, you’re freaking me out.’

  Maddi had no idea how many minutes had passed before Alex’s voice finally came over the line again, but with the same moronic, bewildered drawl she’d had after the weird episode on the footpath last weekend.

  ‘Maddi?’

  ‘Alex, what the hell’s going on?’

  ‘It has just . . . like all of a sudden everything has come back . . . Oh my God, Maddi. I know who attacked me.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ‘Oh God! There you are Mum. Are you OK?’

  Tara’s voice forced Laura’s eyes open. She must have dropped off to sleep.

  ‘Yes. I’m fine,’ she said, moving like an automaton into the hug Tara offered.

  ‘How is he?’ Tara said, pulling back.

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I’m still waiting for him to come out of surgery.’

  ‘Hello,’ a soft voice chimed from the doorway before Dr Cowlett appeared. ‘Surgery went very well,’ he said, nodding to acknowledge Tara’s presence. ‘We managed to repair his shattered femur, though he may be left with a limp. His collarbone should not be a problem once the bones knit, and his ribs will heal themselves if he takes it easy for a while. It’s his brain injury that is of most concern, but the good news,’ he said with a controlled smile, ‘is that we have successfully relieved the pressure in his skull.’

  ‘Do you have any idea about the extent of his, um, brain damage?’ Laura asked, dreading the answer.

  Dr Cowlett shook his head. ‘We won’t know until he’s conscious again.’

  ‘When will that be?’ Laura said.

  ‘It’s hard to say, patient responses differ. We’ll know more in a few days.’

  ‘So, he’s likely to be unconscious for the next few days, then?’ Laura said.

  ‘Yes. At least.’ Dr Cowlett looked at her, his face solemn. ‘Ms Nesci, your husband has suffered severe brain trauma. You should prepare yourself for the possibility that he could remain in a coma for weeks. You need to look after yourself and leave us to look after Simon.’

  Dr Cowlett’s kind blue eyes were trained on Laura while her own filled with tears. ‘When can I see him?’

  ‘Someone will be along shortly to take you to him.’ He patted her shoulder and left the room.

  Even though the hissing and beeping floating from Room 403 provided a semblance of warning about what was to come, Laura was shocked into immobility by the sight of the lifeless figure before her trapped within an abundance of machinery and tubes, his pallid skin – or what she could see of it – presenting little contrast to the white cotton blanket from which his plastered leg emerged. His face was a livid mass of bruising and swelling against the white bandage swaddling his head. It was only the backdrop of daylight through the window behind him that seemed real.

  Laura shuffled to the foot of his
bed and gazed at this replica of her husband, wondering if Tara had any awareness of how hard she was squeezing her arm. Gently breaking her grasp, Laura moved around to his side and bent to kiss his lips below a plastic oxygen tube disappearing into each nostril.

  ‘He doesn’t look like Simon,’ Tara murmured.

  ‘No. He doesn’t.’ Laura shook her head softly, her eyes drawn to the flickering screens and macabre tubing. ‘What did you tell Seth?’

  Tara breathed in and slowly expelled. ‘He knows Pops is in hospital because he had an accident. I know he’ll want to visit on the weekend so I’ll have to start preparing him.’ She stood. ‘I’m going to get coffee. I’ll grab you a cappuccino.’

  Once Tara had left, Laura sat on the edge of Simon’s bed, as close as the machinery would allow. ‘Simon, it’s Laura,’ she said softly. ‘You’re going to be OK. Just hang in there.’ It seemed surreal to see him so immobile, so unresponsive. ‘Thanks for cooking the lasagne and making the salad by the way. It was a great surprise after a shitty day.’ She laid her hand gently on his, taking care not to disturb the needles and tubing. Sniffed back her tears ‘Oh Simon, what have you done?’

  She sat for some time, simply holding his hand and forcing herself to stay in the moment, to plan no more than one minute at a time if necessary. ‘Please hang in there and get better,’ she whispered in his ear on hearing Tara’s footsteps returning.

  ‘Thanks,’ Laura said, taking the coffee. ‘I think I’ll go back to work tomorrow. I can’t do any good here. But I’ll visit on my way home each day.

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ Tara said. She lowered her voice and cleared her throat. ‘I’ve thought a bit about that stiletto tip you found.’

  Laura had forgotten the tip, still lying accusingly on their kitchen bench. ‘I was planning to ask him about it when he came home . . .’ With difficulty she swallowed a mouthful of coffee and threw her head back as though gravity would stem her tears.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Yes?’ Laura said. After a prolonged silence, she turned to look at her daughter. Her intent brown eyes were studying her, and she seemed to be searching for words. ‘Tara?’ she prompted.