You Don't Even Know

by Sue Lawson

  My eyelids start to feel heavy.

  Howling. Flailing. Dragging. Kicking.

  My eyes snap open. I can’t go there again.

  I press the button to raise the bed. For a moment I envy Mackie, her seemingly peaceful sleep. A wave of guilt swamps me.

  I slip out of bed and walk to Mackie. Her breathing is slow and shallow. Her small hand lies on top of the blue bedspread. There are chips of yellow nail polish on her thumbnail.

  The dream howl and something else taps at the edges of my brain.

  I drag the visitor’s chair closer to her bed and sit. Without thinking, I reach out and hold Mackie’s hand. Eyes shut, I let the memory, waving in the wings of my mind for attention, take centrestage.

  70

  ALEX

  Mia held my face in her little hands. “We can swim now, Alex. Come on.”

  My phone rang. Tilly’s face flashed on the screen. “Wait. I have to talk to Tilly. Then we’ll swim. I promise.”

  Mia’s bottom lip poked out.

  “Honest, Mia.” I scooped her off my guts and picked up the phone.

  “Okay – but you promised.” She skipped from the room as I pressed the accept button.

  “You still mad?”

  “Nah,” said Tilly. “Well, a bit. Me, Christy and Sel are meeting at the Harold Holt Pool. You and Mia should come.”

  Outdoor pool with Tilly or swim amongst the crap left by Ethan? “What are you wearing?”

  Tilly giggled. “My new bikini. And shorts.”

  I swung my legs off the couch. “You’ve convinced me. You don’t have the train timetable, do you?”

  Tilly clucked her tongue. “I’ll look it up.”

  I grinned. Sure, I could have done that myself, but I liked it when Miss Organisation did things for me. The sound of her fingers tapping on a keyboard was loud. I could picture her leaning close to the screen, nose twisted, the way she did when concentrating, phone lying beside the collection of shells on her desk. A bubbly sensation filled my stomach.

  “Can you be at the station in twenty minutes?”

  “Easy! I’ll grab a towel for me and Mia and we’re on the way.”

  “Great. See you at the pool”

  “You bet.” As I spoke, I snatched beach towels from the linen press and moved to Mia’s room.

  “Hey,” said Tilly. “Bring cash – your shout. You owe me for lunch last weekend.”

  Mia’s door was open and her room empty.

  “Sure.” I scooted down the stairs, towels over my shoulder.

  “And can you burn that CD you were talking about?”

  “Angus Stone?”

  I froze in the foyer, a flutter of fear fanning my gut. The front door was wide open.

  “Yeah, that’s the one. ”

  “Got to go, Tilly.” I hung up.

  “Mia.” My voice echoed through the empty house.

  71

  ROOM 302, NEUROSURGERY UNIT, PRINCE WILLIAM HOSPITAL

  I jerk awake. I’m sweating and shaking and breathless. For a moment I can’t work out where I am. Pyjamas. T-shirt slicked to the back of the vinyl chair. Right arm plastered. I’m holding Mackie’s hand. Hospital. I breathe out.

  It’s only a memory. It’s not real. It can’t hurt me. My breath catches in my throat. But it is real. It did happen.

  I rub my thumb against Mackie’s index finger. “She wasn’t in the front yard, Mackie. Not anywhere, not even in the garage.” My voice quivers. “I wanted to check the street, in case she was riding her bike on the footpath or something, but it was like someone had tied a rope around my waist and was hauling me back inside. In the family room, I called and called.”

  It’s as though a dagger is being twisted in my heart. I release Mackie’s hand and rub my sternum with my knuckles. But the pain builds. I shift positions, peeling my sweaty shirt and PJ pants from the chair.

  “Oh, shit. Oh, God.” I clutch Mackie’s hand again. I’m rocking back and forth in the chair.

  The cork I’d jammed and waxed in place had worked its way loose, allowing all the memories I’d locked away to leech out as snapshots.

  I’m floating above the patio, watching it happen all over again.

  72

  ALEX

  Wet marks on the sofa from pool-soaked people.

  Discarded cans scattered over the coffee table.

  That bowl, the one Mum and Dad fought over when he found out it had cost her close to a thousand bucks, filled with ash and rollie butts.

  The outdoor table and chairs strewn with towels and sunscreen, more cigarette ash and butts and cans and bottles.

  A chip packet limp against the pool fence.

  Chair cushions floating on the still water.

  The pool gate loomed in front of me. The open latch came into sharp focus.

  I sprinted to the pool deck. Despite the stifling heat, my skin was icy.

  Please.

  Oh, please.

  Please.

  I stared at chair cushions, pool noodles and Dad’s blow-up lounge chair floating on the surface. I let out the breath I seemed to have held for ages.

  No sign of movement. No sign of Mia.

  Tears of relief pricked my eyes.

  I looked over my shoulder at the chaos behind me. “Mum’s gonna kill him.”

  Not only had Ethan and his mates trashed the joint, but Ethan – perfect, respectable Ethan – had broken Mum and Dad’s most important rule. The one they had repeated, as though it was a mantra, from the day they first talked about a pool in the backyard.

  “The pool gate must be closed and the latch locked at all times. It’s your responsibility. Not your friends’ or any other member of the family’s. Yours.”

  Feeling smug, I placed my phone on the chair nearest the pool and took a step into the water, disturbing the stillness, to retrieve the floating junk. As I dragged a cushion towards me, Mia’s goggles popped to the surface of the water.

  My knees buckled.

  I lurched forwards, dragging noodles and cushions aside. At the deepest end of the pool, just beneath the surface, floated something bright pink. Tendrils of hair drifted like seaweed with the tide.

  An animal howl filled the thick air.

  Arms flailed, feet slipped.

  Stumbling, splashing, duck diving.

  Dragging, grasping, struggling.

  I crushed the sodden weight to my chest and kicked to the shallows.

  73

  ROOM 302, NEUROSURGERY UNIT, PRINCE WILLIAM HOSPITAL

  When I wake, my head pounds and my legs are cold. Jenny is on the other side of the bed, taking Mackie’s blood pressure. I pull my hand away from Mackie’s.

  “Morning, Alex.”

  “Hey.” I stretch and wriggle my toes, hoping my face isn’t as red as it feels. “I couldn’t get back to sleep. After the dream.”

  “You were pretty upset.” Jenny writes in Mackie’s blue folder. “Feeling better now?”

  “Yeah. How’s Mackie?”

  “She’s doing okay.” Jenny’s lips press together. “Come on, I’ll do your obs before handover.”

  Not long after my untouched breakfast tray is taken away, Paul strolls into the room.

  “You’re in early,” I say.

  “Breakfast meeting. Only the food was crap. Thought I’d go down to the caf. I know you’ve eaten, but do you want to come? For a smoothie or juice.”

  “Okay if I shower and dress first?’

  “Great. Give me a chance to check emails. I’ll be back in twenty minutes.” Paul bounces away, humming. I wonder if I’ll ever feel like that again.

  In the cafeteria, the air throbs with the whir of the juicer and the roar of the coffee machine. The rumble of voices mingles with the clink of crockery and glasses. Doctors dressed in blue scrubs sit in groups, drinking coffee. An elderly couple watch a sparrow hop along the floor, searching for crumbs. Beneath it all plays a song Mum often sings when she’s driving. Something about flame trees and weary dr
ivers. The smell of bacon, coffee and fresh bread makes my stomach rumble.

  “Did you eat?” asks Paul.

  “Too hard. I end up wearing most of it.” I raise my plastered arm. “The juice, jam, marg – they all have those stupid peel-back lids. Impossible to open with one hand.”

  “My shout then. What do you feel like?”

  “It’s okay, I’m not hungry. Honest.” My stomach betrays me again.

  Paul raises his eyebrows. “Yeah right. Well, I’m having the works – bacon, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms. A kick start juice and a coffee. What about you?”

  “A tropical smoothie.”

  Paul gives me the look. “Oh, come on.”

  “All right. Same as you.”

  “I’ll even cut it up for you.” Paul winks and steps forwards to order.

  I watch the staff hustle behind the counter, squeezing juice and preparing our meals. When they are done, Paul hands me the juices and I fumble a bit with my broken hand. He carries the plates. “Let’s sit by the windows.”

  We choose a table overlooking the outdoor eating area where smokers are huddled around an ashtray, arms folded.

  “I’ll grab your smoothie and my coffee.”

  While he’s gone, the sparrow the old couple were watching reaches our table, its movements swift and jerky. It pecks a crumb near my feet and flies to the back of a chair, eats and flutters back to the floor.

  Paul returns with my smoothie, cutlery and, tucked under his arm, our order number on a small metal pole. Number seventeen. “They’ll bring my coffee.”

  “My favourite number.”

  “Seventeen?” says Paul, placing it on our table.

  “Used to be.” I cut up my egg. “But Mia died on the 17th.”

  “How old was Mia?”

  “Four years, two months.” The coffee machine and conversations seem louder. I’ll stop talking if he says something inane like “sorry for your loss”.

  “Four? Jesus.”

  My head jerks up. “She would have started kinder this year.”

  Paul shakes his head. “That is bloody horrible, Alex.”

  “You don’t even know.”

  A girl with thick black eyeliner that arcs to her eyebrows stands over our table. “Flat white?” Her voice is deadpan.

  “Thanks,” says Paul. She places the coffee on the table and leaves.

  “She could do with one of our kick start juices,” says Paul. “Can you manage okay?”

  “Yeah, no foil.”

  I sip my juice and watch a new lot of smokers light up outside. “Never been keen on that.”

  “Smoking? Me neither.”

  While we eat, Paul chats about his dad, who was a big smoker. He pulls a face. “The ashtrays were the worst. Revolting.”

  “I reckon the ambo, Lucy, smoked. She reeked of it.” I glance at Paul. “Weird thing to remember, eh?”

  “If you ask me, our brains are weird.”

  A sensation swamps me. The cafeteria, its customers and tables melt away. It’s as though Paul and I are sitting by the pool at home, surrounded by Ethan’s mess, watching me stagger and lurch, feet struggling for purchase on the bottom of the pool. I can feel the weight of Mia in my arms. She’s heavy, so bloody heavy. And floppy.

  I place my knife and fork on my plate.

  “Alex?” says Paul. “Pain?”

  “Ethan and his mates took off for food or something. They left the pool gate open.” I grip the table with both hands. “When I, um …” I press my lips together for a moment before continuing. “When I found her, I kept saying, ‘you’re right, Mi. You’re right.’ But I knew she wasn’t. She was blue and floppy, like her toy rabbit.” I lean forwards then back in the chair. “It was like my brain was in hyper-drive. Like a DVD on fast forward. In the time it took me to swim Mi to the shallow end of the pool, a tonne of crap flashed through my brain.” I squeeze the edge of the table. “Not thoughts or sentences, but flashes of stuff.”

  “Like what?” asks Paul.

  “TV ads about kids drowning in twenty seconds. Bits of CPR classes. A news report about a little boy who was dead for ages under the ice, but they revived him and he was fine.”

  “Sounds like your brain was working out how to help Mia.”

  “Fat lot of good it did.” I look around the cafeteria at people talking, laughing, reading papers and iPads. “Get this. I could carry her in the water, no worries, but when I reached the steps, bloody hell.” I shake my head. “Normally, I could lift her up, swing her around, you know? I mean, she was a just a little kid, but, man, she was heavy.” I twirl my fork between my thumb and index finger. “I was so scared I was hurting her. I had to drag her, pull her by the arm. I had to be hurting her.”

  “You had no choice, Alex.”

  I shrug. “Once I had her out of the pool, I rolled her on her side and checked her airways, like they taught us. I noticed a smashed mixer bottle under the table, and you know what I thought? ‘Shit. Dad’s gonna go off tap over that.’ That’s bullshit, right? I’m about to do CPR on my little sister. Who gives a fat rat’s arse about a smashed bottle?”

  Paul opens his mouth, but I talk over him. If I stop talking, I mightn’t ever start again.

  “So Mia’s all limp and blue and stuff, and my CPR instructor’s voice fills my head, as loud and clear as if he’s right beside me. ‘Danger, response, airways, breathing, CPR, defibrillator.’ I do all of that and press the heels of my hands into my baby sister’s chest, with the chorus of that old disco song, Staying Alive – buzzing in my head. The huh huh huh huh bit. The guy told us the compressions had to be to that rhythm.” A shuddering sigh racks my body. I rub my forehead. “What a dickhead, right, thinking about disco songs?”

  “It’s what you were taught, so that’s what you do. And to be honest, Alex, I’m floored by your composure.”

  “My composure?” I scoff. “Yeah right.” My voice cracks.

  Paul places his hand on my left arm. I don’t pull away. “Alex, most people would have completely lost it, and who could blame them? That is as horrible as it gets.” He takes his hand from my arm. “How did you call for help?”

  “I’d left my phone on a chair near the pool, so I pulled the chair over, pressed triple zero and put it on speaker. Took a bit of effort because I had to keep working on Mi at the same time.” A whirring sound fills my ears. “The compressions were forcing this bright blue watery and spewy stuff out of her mouth. I panicked at first then realised it was the same blue as the icy pole. Anyway, all that gunk meant I had to keep clearing that her airways, keep count of compressions and ring triple zero. It was …” What? Hectic? Disgusting? Shithouse? There’s no word for it.

  74

  ALEX

  Pump, pump, pump. Sweat dripped down my forehead.

  Questions from a disembodied voice.

  “Is she breathing?”

  “No.”

  “Pulse?”

  “No.”

  Pump, pump, pump.

  “How long was she in the water?”

  “Dunno.” My knees scraped on the pavers and my shoulders burned. I didn’t care. “She’s not as blue, that’s good, right?”

  “You’re doing fine, Alex. The ambulance is on its way.”

  The smell of hot chips and burgers and the sound of voices filled the dense air.

  A shadow crossed Mia’s body. Ethan snarled something at me.

  “Alex, is someone else there?” asked Sam, the guy on the phone.

  “My brother.” I was puffing hard and sweating. “Ethan.” Pump, pump – tilt head, cover mouth, blow. Pump, pump.

  “Ethan?” says Sam.

  “What?”

  “I’m Sam. The ambulance is about two minutes away yet. Alex has been doing CPR for about fifteen minutes; he needs a break. Can you take over? I’ll guide you. It’d be better for Mia.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Ethan, I’ll help you.”

  “I said, I can’t,” he yelled at Sam.<
br />
  I wanted to shake him, thump him. But to do that I’d have to stop working on Mia. “You have to, Ethan”

  “It’s okay, Alex.” Calm, reassuring Sam. “You’re a gun at this, mate. You can do it.”

  Pump, pump, pump.

  “So, Ethan,” said Sam. “I need you to wait out the front for the ambulance. Can you do that for me?”

  “I guess.”

  “Good man. And do you have a mobile?”

  “Course.”

  “Great. I also need you to ring your parents. Straightaway.”

  Something sharp and pointy settled in my heart.

  75

  CAFETERIA, PRINCE WILLIAM HOSPITAL

  That same sharp and pointy feeling is there now, sitting in this crowded cafeteria with Paul.

  “Ethan arrived before the ambulance. I heard the noise, but didn’t realise he was there until he spoke.” My laugh is brittle. “Know the first thing he said?”

  Paul eyes are fixed on me.

  “He said, ‘What the fuck have you done?’” My head starts to thump. “And his mates were standing around, but none of them helped Mia, Paul. Not one.”

  A tray clatters to the floor. Plates and glasses smash.

  I stare up at the ceiling. Everything hurts, my legs, shoulders, arms, ribs and head. “They blame me. Dad, Ethan, Harvey, even Mum. They all blame me for what happened. And that’s okay because it was my fault. I was in charge.”

  “Alex, have you told anyone the gate was open?”

  Tears prickle my eyes. “What’s the point?” I push my chair back from the table and stand. “I need to go.”

  Paul places the serviette on his plate. “I’ll walk you back to your room.”

  Paul and I don’t talk as we wind our way through corridors to the lifts. In the elevator, I lean against the back wall. The wooden handrail rubs against my spine. At the third floor, a bell rings and the doors open.

  “Alex,” says Paul outside the lift. “You’re incredibly brave, mate. Know that.”

  I bite my lip.

  “Like me to walk you back to your room?”

  “Nah, I’m right.”