The Bridge

by Enza Gandolfo

  Sarah imagined Ada as an eagle diving.

  Finally, after years of resistance, the government had installed safety barriers, and now the authorities declared it was impossible to jump, to fall, to suicide off the bridge. Sarah didn’t know if that was true or not. People found ways to scale walls. The Berlin Wall. Prison walls. You couldn’t lock the passage to the underworld. Too late for Ada. But Ada would’ve found some other way to die.

  ‘Most days,’ Ada told Sarah a few weeks before she died, ‘I wish I didn’t exist.’

  For over an hour, they’d been sitting outside the European restaurant in a patch of sunshine, drinking coffee and watching a group of gay-marriage activists demonstrating on the steps of Parliament House. They’d talked about work — the challenges of legal aid and the perils of nursing — and about friends. Jess, who was in London, ‘making ethereal installations’. Sue, who was doing her PhD in Sydney. They’d been gossiping and laughing before Ada made the comment.

  ‘Go back to the psych,’ Sarah pleaded. ‘When you were seeing the psych you were better. The medication helped.’

  ‘I’m never better, no matter how many pills. It’s an illusion.’

  A week later, Nick had rung her. ‘Ada’s dead.’

  Nick responded to all her questions, as if he were in the witness stand and she were the prosecuting lawyer. But knowing all the details was useless; it was sad and distressing and tragic. Even after eight years, there were moments Sarah forgot that Ada was dead and thought, I must tell Ada …

  Sarah passed the mangroves and the backwash and headed for the memorial. She read the plaque erected in memory of the men who died when the bridge collapsed in 1970. She read through the list of names and occupations. She noticed the roadside memorial for Ashleigh. A wooden cross with her name painted in black. Ashleigh Bassillo-White. 20/09/2009. RIP. There was a bunch of red roses and several cards. Sarah picked up one of the cards. It was from Laura and Mani; on the front, a girl riding a horse; inside, We love you, Ash, and we miss you.

  After a week of leaving messages, Mani’s mother had returned Sarah’s call. ‘The girls have given their statements to the police. They’re doing VCE. They’ve lost a close friend. We don’t want you to talk to them. Please don’t call again.’

  ‘I thought they might want to help Jo. She’s their friend too.’

  Mrs Cruz’s voice was shaking with anger. ‘She was drunk and driving. And she was fighting with Ashleigh, and she might’ve killed all of them.’ And then she hung up.

  The girls almost made it home. A minute or two and everything would’ve been different. How long had it taken for the guards on the bridge to notice Ada: to notice her stop her car, to notice her getting out and making her way to the rail? How long did it take them to run out of the office, to get in their car, to make it to the top of the bridge? Was it a matter of minutes?

  The debris from the crash had been cleared. There were several skid marks on the road. The police estimated that Jo was speeding, doing 90 kilometres an hour in a 60 zone. The car spun out of control. Cause unknown. Mani had mentioned oil on the road, but there was no evidence here. If Jo had been sober, alert, not speeding, not arguing, it was unlikely there would’ve been an accident.

  When Jo was young, Mary sometimes took her to St Augustine’s on Sundays for the 11.00 am mass. Mary insisted Jo wear a pretty dress and nice polished shoes, for God. Mary wore her best dress too, and sometimes gloves and a hat. She told Jo that women were no longer obliged to cover their heads, but God appreciated it if they did. Jo hated the dressing up, but she enjoyed going to church with Mary, watching the priest in his white gown, and the altar boys — tough kids who played football and cricket on the street — so demure and pious in their lace-trimmed cotton tunics, their hands, washed and scrubbed clean, joined in prayer. Jo loved the way everyone stood up, hymn books in hand, and joined in the singing. She was intrigued by how compliant the adults were, how they sat silent and earnest, nodding in agreement during the priest’s booming sermons on sin or love or forgiveness. And all the sitting and standing and kneeling, and then sitting and standing and kneeling again, reminded her of some of the games they played at school. When her grandmother lined up for communion, the body of Christ, Jo sat alone and watched as the priest placed a thin wafer on each person’s tongue. After church, they went to the bakery to buy fresh bread, and Mr Maxim gave her a wink — ‘All pure now’ — and a warm and crusty dinner roll.

  It was at St Augustine’s that she learnt about heaven and hell. She found it comforting to think of Grandpa Tom in heaven smoking his rollies and telling stories. Mandy let her go with her grandmother, but she squashed all notions of a God: ‘There is no God. There’s what there is, and if we aren’t good to each other there is only misery.’

  Since her early teens, when she stopped going to church with Mary, Jo hadn’t given much more thought to heaven or hell or God. But now she remembered those sermons. Blessed are those with faith. If only she was as sure as her grandmother that heaven existed.

  Did they let killers go to heaven? Would Ash be standing at heaven’s door? Would she put her hand up in protest: She doesn’t belong here?

  From the bedroom, Jo listened to Mandy moving around in the kitchen. Running water. Banging pots. Rattling cutlery. The aroma of bolognaise sauce, fried chicken, and lamb curry, all mixed together. Since the accident her mother spent any free time cooking; the freezer was crammed full with plastic containers of food, waiting. Jo longed to be with her mother in the kitchen, to sit with her at the table, to watch her dish out the pasta, to yell at her for putting too much on her plate, to eat and talk and argue. To have nothing else to talk about except the weather and the news and the loonies at the supermarket and too much homework. This ache for her mother was physical — it was a throbbing pain, laced with regret. Overwhelming regret for all those years she had shunted her mother aside.

  Your mother wishes you were dead.

  Did her mother wish she were dead?

  The night before Ash’s funeral, Jo dreamt she was teetering at the edge of a high cliff. Under her feet the ground cracked, and loose rocks crashed into the surf below. Behind her, people were gathering. If she didn’t jump, they’d push. Had her mother been among them?

  She woke, unable to lie still, and paced the room. The torn red dress was still on the floor. She snatched it, scrunched it into a tight ball, carried it out of the house, and dumped it into the wheelie bin. Back in her room, she thought about Ash and how particular she was about clothes. Rae was particular about clothes too, but their tastes didn’t match. Jo knew what Ash liked. She shouldn’t let Ash be buried in just anything. Ash had picked out a dress to buy to wear to their Year 12 formal. It was in a designer shop in a laneway in the city. She wanted to pay it off in $50 installments, but the manager had refused to put the dress aside for her. Rae would hate the dress. It was so short you could see the feather tattoo on Ash’s upper thigh. So short that when Ash lifted her arms, the dress rose above the trim of her white lace knickers. The seams were on the outside. It was black silk with three roughly cut question marks, emerald-green, sewn to the front of the dress. The price tag was $455.

  Was that too much to pay for Ash’s last dress?

  Should she tell Rae about the dress? Send a text or an email, slip a note under the door?

  At midnight, the wind changed and a heavy gust blew the front gate open. The loose windows rattled. The neighbourhood dogs barked and howled, and their owners called out to them. All night Jo was dizzy and nauseous and went back and forth to the bathroom. She knelt on the floor and dry-retched into the toilet. Hanging her head over the bowl, liquid bubbles rising and turning into acid in her throat.

  Just before sunrise, she dozed off and dreamt that Rae was running towards the house, wielding a knife, swinging it frantically. When Jo woke up, the dream seemed real. If it was real, soon she’d be as dead as Ash.
r />   She imagined Rae with a gun. Alex hurling bombs through the window.

  My parents aren’t killers. Only one killer here, and that’s you.

  If someone else was driving, if someone else killed Ash, Jo would’ve been furious. If it’d been Mani or Laura or Kevin driving, if they’d been drunk, Jo wouldn’t be able to forgive them. She’d be sitting in the kitchen of Ash’s house with Ash’s parents, with Jane, and she’d want the driver dead. Death deserved revenge. ‘You killed Ash. You killed her. Die. Die now.’

  You owe me that dress.

  St Nicholas, the Greek Orthodox church, was several streets away, but the ringing of the bells could be heard in Mandy’s kitchen. Mandy sat in front of a cup of coffee gone cold. It was the morning of Ashleigh’s funeral. But the bells weren’t for Ashleigh. The dead man, Mr Anton, was a customer at the supermarket. Mandy knew him well enough to ask after his health, his wife, and his grandchildren. She knew his taste in cheese — ‘don’t tell the other Greeks, but Bulgarian feta is best’ — and his weakness for expensive prosciutto; she knew which bones he bought for his dog, Misha, and that his diabetic sister craved the Turkish delights they kept on the deli counter, and that he snuck them into the nursing home at least once a week.

  Mandy had planned to go to the funeral as a sign of respect for an old man who had a smile and a polite word for the woman behind the counter. He called her ‘darling’ and flirted with her, and even though he was well into his eighties, his harmless flirting made her happy.

  But she wouldn’t go. Today she wouldn’t leave the house. Today, while the Greeks gathered in the church on Murray Street to celebrate a long life, several kilometres down the road, at the chapel at Altona Crematorium, another group of mourners would be farewelling Ashleigh. Young and vibrant; too young, a life cut short. What would Ashleigh have done with those extra seventy years?

  Ashleigh’s family and friends would drive past the house on their way to the funeral. She remembered Rae’s words: ‘I wish it was your daughter and not mine.’ She imagined rocks through windows; she imagined gunshots. Rae and Alex could turn violent. When Rae had come to the door, she was spent, falling apart, despairing, a woman collapsing into her grief. It had shocked Mandy to see her so depleted. But fury might rise — it might be the only way to stop grief from becoming all-consuming. The death of a daughter was surely enough to turn any parent into a monster. Mandy remembered her gentle father after her mother’s death, the way he crept around the house, his quiet steps, his silence. And then one day, a week after the funeral, she came home to find him in the kitchen smashing plates against the wall in a violent and terrifying rage.

  Mandy locked the front door and the windows, pulled down all the blinds, and turned off the radio. She lit the long white candle, the one she kept in the emergency drawer along with matches, a torch, and the first-aid kit. She’d never lit a candle to mark a death — candles had no special significance for her — but the flame was strangely comforting.

  She knew she should go to Jo. They should be together. She should be holding her daughter, giving her comfort. But it was Jo’s fault Ashleigh was dead, and the anger was overwhelming. The anger and the sadness. She was weary and bruised and unable to move, so she continued to sit at the table with her cold coffee and weep.

  No one hammered on the door. No one came to yell at Jo. Or at Mandy. The day was listless. The candle flame flickered, the clock on the kitchen wall marking every second.

  Jo finally fell asleep exhausted. She woke hours later, disorientated.

  Why aren’t you going to my funeral? You can’t even stay awake.

  When they’d slept at each other’s houses, Ash fell asleep first. Many nights Jo lay awake watching Ash sleep, watching her toss and turn. Ash kicked her legs until all the covers were tossed off, onto the ground or, if they were sharing a bed, onto Jo.

  Jo closed her eyes, crossed her arms over her chest, and tried to imagine being Ash, lying in a coffin. No more movement, no more tossing and turning, no more kicking.

  I am dead, not you. Let me at least have that.

  ‘I’ll be dead too, one day.’ The thought gave Jo comfort.

  Chapter 17

  Ashleigh’s family gathered at the house and waited for the funeral cars. The men, dressed in their suits and ties, paced around the garden; the smokers lit cigarette after cigarette and the non-smokers envied them. The women wore dark dresses or dark pants and jackets. Normally a boisterous crowd, they were lost for words.

  Jane wore a plain blue dress. She hadn’t worn a dress since she was a toddler. ‘Don’t ask that, Dad,’ Alex reprimanded him once when Antonello asked his granddaughter why she didn’t wear dresses.

  ‘This is Ash’s dress. Is it okay to wear it? I asked Mum, but I don’t think she heard me,’ Jane had asked Paolina earlier. Paolina had nodded.

  Jane was taller than Ashleigh and skinnier, so the dress was too big. She wore it with purple Doc Marten boots that reminded Antonello of his mother, on those winter days in Sicily when they all went out to the vineyards to pick the grapes. Emilia always wore a dress, and over the dress, an apron. She didn’t own boots, but for the harvest she borrowed a pair of his father’s old shoes. They were too big, and accentuated her narrow ankles and her strong calf muscles.

  Jane was avoiding her parents, keeping out of their way, out of their sight. With Ashleigh, they’d been a family, a tight unit, but now they’d been yanked apart; they were separate entities, detached, floating. They were lost and broken and it seemed impossible that they could become a family again. ‘Never,’ Antonello heard Rae say. ‘We will never be whole again.’

  Gone was the spontaneity that Alex and Rae encouraged, that Antonello had disapproved of. Gone were the in-jokes that he didn’t get, the giggling laughter, and the eye-rolls when he or Paolina did something old-fashioned, something too Italian, something they didn’t approve of.

  Ashleigh was the more affectionate of the two girls. From the time she learnt to crawl until she was eleven or twelve, she’d climbed onto his lap asking for stories, curled up next to him on the couch and fallen asleep, begged to stay over and inched between them in bed. He’d never let Alex and Nicki sleep in their bed, but he didn’t say no to Ashleigh. Jane was a fussy baby, and hated being left behind by her mother. Skittish. She slipped off laps and out of grasps. She refused to spend nights anywhere but her own bed. She hated to be touched; she squirmed when they moved in to give her a kiss, a hug, to run their fingers through her hair. Jane was more aloof than Ashleigh, and he hadn’t persisted. He’d let her be. Now he put his hands tentatively on her shoulders, and she leant into him.

  There were two funeral cars. Jane said she wanted to go with Antonello and Paolina. Rae’s parents went in the other car, with Rae and Alex. Nicki and her son, Thomas, and Rae’s sisters and their families, made their own way to the chapel at the Altona cemetery. No one said anything about which route they might take, but someone must have alerted the funeral directors, and so they avoided Whitehall and Hyde Streets, the freeway, and the West Gate Bridge.

  Paolina wore a black dress, black stockings, and shoes. If Ashleigh were alive, she would have teased her grandmother about being dressed in black. ‘You’re a goth,’ she would have said, ‘just missing a tattoo and a few piercings.’ And if it weren’t Ashleigh that was dead but some elderly relative, Alex, Rae, and Nicki would’ve all said something — Oh, Mum, no one wears all black for mourning anymore — like they did when Paolina’s mother died and she insisted on wearing black for three months, as was the old Italian tradition, even though Paolina was born in Australia and for most of her life had rebelled against the old ways.

  Now Paolina might never wear colour again. She might dress in black until she died. He envied her. She wore her grief, took it with her, and wherever she went she was a reminder to everyone, to the whole world, that someone much loved had died.

  All week peo
ple had mistaken Antonello for a normal bloke. They didn’t notice that his whole world was crumbling and that he was having trouble keeping upright; that his body was loose and unstable, unanchored. He wasn’t sure about anything, not walking or breathing. He’d lost the ability to operate in the world, to stand at the street corner and give directions to the cinema to a mother with a carload of ten-year-olds. Or listen to a young man wanting to sell a new phone plan. He didn’t have the energy or the words to tell them, he couldn’t bring himself to say, My granddaughter died, my beautiful granddaughter died. If he’d been able to wear black, all black, they might’ve read the signs and left him alone.

  Paolina wound her rosary beads around her fingers. At some stage she’d swapped her everyday blue ones for the black rosary beads that had belonged to her mother. Her funeral beads. At regular intervals she raised the silver cross to her lips. She chanted prayers in a low whisper. In the early days, when they were first married, he found this irritating. Why, he wanted to know, could she not say the prayers in silence? ‘I am,’ she’d insist.

  They slid, all three of them, into the back seat, Jane in the middle, with her headphones on, eyes on her phone, and her body pressed into her grandmother. Only a few weeks earlier Antonello had asked her why she spent so much time on the phone, and Jane, surprisingly forthcoming, showed him several music and game apps.

  At the chapel, the funeral directors led them up the centre aisle to the front pews. Alex and Rae and Jane. Rae’s parents. Antonello and Paolina. And then all of Ashleigh’s aunts, uncles, cousins, and then more people, until the chapel was full.

  The coffin was a plain white box, sustainable wood. Antonello was bewildered by Alex and Rae’s ability, in their grief, to think about the planet. The coffin was covered in flowers, including one large wreath of red roses. A selection of photographs of Ashleigh were mounted in frames and sat on a small table next to the coffin. In every one of them she was smiling, a big smile that forced the dimples to go deep into her cheeks. Antonello stared at the photographs and tried not to think about the coffin, about Ashleigh’s body inside, broken and bruised and lifeless. He wanted to remember her living. Alive, laughing, dancing, teasing. He couldn’t shake the wishful part of him, the hope to see Ashleigh running into the church, screaming, It’s a mistake. I’m alive, alive.