The Bridge
Page 28
Her grandmother said that wishing for too much was bad luck. The sort of bad luck no one could shake.
On the way back home, Jo couldn’t avoid the West Gate. Surrounded by scaffolding, it looked wounded, unable to hold itself up. An old soldier buckling under the weight of history, of trauma. As she came closer to it, she remembered the wheel slipping. The car spinning. The screams. The air was grainy, dirty. The dust was coating Jo’s skin, getting into her pores.
‘Jo. Jo.’
At the sound of her name, faint and in the distance, she shuddered. It wasn’t Ash’s voice. When she looked up she caught sight of a man walking a bicycle. He was waving. It was Kevin. He was heading towards Jo. She could not face him; her heart was racing now and she was trembling. She ran across the road and into the Stony Creek Reserve. Once she was sure he had not followed her, she sat under a tall river red gum. There was a cool breeze and it took her a while to calm down.
The first time Jo had met Kevin, it was at a club at the beginning of the year. Ash and Kevin were already there. Jo spotted Ash in the middle of the crowded dance floor.
‘That’s Kevin,’ Ash said, pointing to a nerdy-looking guy sitting on his own. ‘He’s not much of a dancer.’
Jo longed to talk to Kevin about Ash, to ask him, Is she really dead? She wanted to ask if Ash was talking to him. She wanted to ask if Ash had been trying to push her away. She wanted to tell him about all the things she and Ash had done together over the years. About the shoplifting, about going into Young and Jackson, about sneaking out at night to graffiti the walls of the underpass, about climbing out of their bedroom windows to go to parties their parents had forbidden them from attending, about sitting on the roof of Ash’s house at midnight and smoking their first joint and the way the city had swayed under the moonlight, and about the nights they spent sleeping together in each other’s rooms, about waking up with Ash’s arm wrapped around her waist … about the fear, the anxiety, that Ash would find someone better. Did Kevin know that feeling?
Sarah strolled past the building where her meeting was scheduled for ten and down the road to a small café in a laneway: five empty tables along the wall, and a counter behind which two women in white gloves were constructing mountainous sandwiches. Sarah ordered a coffee and took out her notebook.
‘I can’t think of anyone,’ Jo had whispered when Sarah asked for a list of people to contact.
‘Come on, Jo. There must be people you’d go to for a reference.’
‘Who’d give me a reference? For what?’
‘Before the accident, though?’ Sarah prodded and pushed, cajoled and coerced, and Jo finally relented and offered a few names — the manager at the café, her school principal, Mrs Chang, Ian Williams. ‘If they remember who I am, they might say I was okay.’
‘There have to be more.’ Sarah had turned to Mandy.
‘How many more?’ Mandy asked.
‘We want it to look like hundreds of people would speak for Jo, even if it’s only three or four who we offer as character witnesses. It has to be the right three or four.’
‘They let you do that?’
‘Yes.’
Mandy had emailed Sarah a list of all Jo’s teachers over the thirteen years of primary and high school. She said she couldn’t remember all the teachers, that she wasn’t one of those friendly mothers who chatted with the teacher as if they were old friends: she’d combed through all the school reports and class photos to find their names. She said she had asked Mary for the names of the two priests at St Augustine’s — she wasn’t sure if they would provide references, though, given Jo hadn’t been to a service for years and she wasn’t baptised, and so not one of them.
Sarah had interviewed Ted, the owner of the café. ‘Reliable enough,’ Ted said. ‘Came in on time. She was okay with the customers. Not great with numbers, but quick enough on her feet. Got on okay with the other staff. Didn’t suffer fools — and we get our fair share — but neither do I,’ he said, laughing. When Sarah pressed him to explain, he shook his head and leaned in closer. ‘I was sorry to hear about the accident, sorry about Ashleigh, great kid, sorry for Jo. Bad for everyone. These young people’ — he said it as if he were in his fifties, but Sarah would have guessed he was in his late twenties or early thirties — ‘they drink and drive, they don’t think, but neither did I when I was their age. Really, a sorry business. Everyone here feels real bad.’
‘Was Jo friendly with anyone? Other staff, I mean — anyone in particular?’
‘Oh, not sure about that. They hang out together in their breaks, sometimes have a coffee after their shift, they chat when it’s quiet, but nothing more that I’ve noticed. Occasionally, Ashleigh would arrive as Jo’s shift ended and they’d head off somewhere together, but you can ask Ruby or Sue. They worked the same shifts as Jo.’
‘Will you write a character reference?’
‘Not much on writing, but if you want to write something up, along lines of what I’ve said — you know, reliable, hard worker, got on well with staff and customers, I’ll sign it.’
‘Would you rehire Jo?’
They were sitting at a corner table. Next to them, four real-estate agents, wearing grey suits and company ties, were discussing ‘the list’. Ted paused. He was tall and broad-shouldered. There was something of the working-class bloke about him — the kind of man you might imagine working in the mines or on a road gang. ‘Well, it’s tough. I mean, everyone knows her and Ashleigh. And one of Ashleigh’s aunts is a regular — was, anyway, haven’t seen her since the accident — but her friends, they come in here and have their breakfast and I don’t want any trouble. I didn’t think she wanted her job back. Her mother rang and said she quit.’
‘Yes, I know. I meant generally speaking.’
‘It’s not that I wouldn’t employ her. I’d like to give her a chance, but not here. Not yet. All too raw.’
Sarah would write up a letter for Ted to sign, but she was afraid it wasn’t going to make much difference.
‘What about Jo’s friends? Her other friends?’ Sarah had asked Mandy.
‘Mani and Laura, of course,’ Mandy said. ‘If there were other friends at school, I don’t know them.’
‘No one has come around, rung?’
‘Not that I know of. She has her mobile, she has her email, but I don’t know if she’s even turned her phone on since the accident. Her father left a message on my mobile, said he tried to ring her but her phone was off.’
At 9.55 Sarah sipped the last of her coffee. Worried she was now running late, she sprinted back down the street to the Department of Justice building. Halfway, she caught her foot on a raised section of the footpath and tripped, unable to catch herself; she landed hard on her hands and knees. Shit. Her knee hurt. Her right hand stung. A couple of people stopped to help. Embarrassed, she struggled to her feet. ‘I’m fine, fine, thanks,’ she said, picking up her bag and limping towards the entrance of the building. She headed straight for the toilets, locking herself in a cubicle. Once alone, she took several deep breaths and brushed the scuffs from her trousers. Fortunately there was no damage. In the past, she’d ruined clothes, shoes, even a handbag. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
After a couple of minutes, she left the cubicle and washed her hands. Her palm was scratched but there was no blood. She brushed her hair and retouched her lipstick, but didn’t linger with the reflection in the mirror. It’s fine.
She took the lift up to the fourth-floor meeting room. Even though she was late, she was the first to arrive. She poured herself a glass of water from the dispenser — she was supposed to drink eight glasses a day; that was part of the diet. This would be her second glass. She opened her notebook and wrote 1/12/2009 and put two ticks. Yesterday she’d only managed four glasses. At this rate she wouldn’t lose the weight.
‘Water,’ her mother said, ‘makes all the difference.’
If she drank eight glasses of water a day, she’d spend most of her time walking between the tap and the toilet — the extra exercise might result in weight loss, but she wouldn’t get any work done. Some days it was hard to find time to go to the toilet at all. But if she lost weight, she might not fall as often. If she lost weight, she might turn into a light, wispy creature, who floated elven-like through the day, through the city, through life. She shook her head. If only she lived in a society where people respected her for her skill in the courtroom, her ability to work with people no one else wanted to work with, her passion for justice, and didn’t judge her on the size of her body. Maybe then she could be fat and it wouldn’t matter.
Law reform was a part of the legal aid lawyer’s job. Each of the lawyers in her office was assigned particular issues. This meant serving on committees and working groups, going along to meetings, organising events — demonstrations and information nights and campaigns. She hated the meetings, but she went to them. She was committed to political action. Collective political action is the only way to create a more just world: it was her mantra, repeated numerous times, at school talks, during committee meetings when she could see the mood dipping down towards despair or lethargy. She venerated activists. There was a time when she’d aspired to be one, a real activist on the frontline, demonstrating, yelling abuse at the politicians and the police. Not the kind of activist who went on boats with Greenpeace, fighting the whalers, or tied themselves to a tree in the forest, to challenge the loggers; she wasn’t a greenie or an environmentalist. Climate change was happening — there was no doubt about that — and something should be done, but she couldn’t summon up the energy to take it on. Her causes were tied to the unjust living conditions of the people she worked with: poor public housing, inhumane refugee policies, increasing rates of Indigenous deaths in custody, deteriorating conditions for female prisoners, violence against women. But in reality being a full-time activist didn’t suit her. She preferred having a job, a routine, and working one-on-one with her individual, sometimes crazy, clients.
Mandy had asked Sarah what prison would be like for Jo the last time they spoke. It was a question she dreaded. It’ll be fucking awful was the unutterable truth. She couldn’t bring herself to tell Mandy that most women who went to prison ended up going back, time and again. That women prisoners suffered from high levels of depression and anxiety, that suicide attempts were common, and that it was rare for women to come out unscathed.
‘It will be hard,’ Sarah had said. ‘She’ll need all the support you can provide.’
By the time the committee members (several legal aid lawyers from across the city, including from the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and Women’s Legal Service Victoria; a social worker; two police officers; a couple of bureaucrats; the representative from the Victorian Law Reform Commission; and representatives from various prisoner support groups) gathered, it was quarter past ten. Sarah’s knee ached, and she became increasingly annoyed with the chair, a long-haired middle-aged lawyer who was happy to wait for a couple more minutes until everyone gets here. The agenda was long — and included the discussion of the submission that Sarah’s working group had drafted on the discrimination against women in Victorian prisons. Writing and researching the submission had taken five months: it included substantial evidence that women prisoners faced more health problems (especially diabetes and heart disease, not to mention the mental-health issues) and were given fewer educational opportunities, which resulted in many of them being unable to cope once they were released. The outcomes were even worse for Indigenous women. But Sarah and the other members of the committee were proud of the report. They wanted these issues highlighted, they had recommendations that would make a difference; now they needed the support of the committee to lobby for change.
An hour later, Sarah thought about Jo as she walked out of the meeting towards the station. The work they were doing had a real chance of improving the conditions of women in prison, and the whole committee was behind it, thankfully. They’d allocated funds to implement the recommendations. But it was unlikely anything would change in time for Jo.
Back in her office, interned by files that required action, Sarah gazed out the window. Across the road, a group of boys in their teens were smoking outside the 7-Eleven. She wasn’t worried about them — they weren’t drinking alcohol. Lately, the majority of her cases were alcohol- and drug-related. Kids as young as twelve and thirteen were already alcoholics and addicts. The judges were frustrated. In the courtroom, the judges, the lawyers, the probation officers, the youth workers, and the cops sat in different sections and acted as if they had something against one another, but in truth they were all in it together. They were all throwing their hands up in the air. As the judges pronounced their sentences, they made grand statements — It shouldn’t be this way; there should be more support and help — but, generally speaking, they locked them up because the parents and the community needed some relief.
Her clients often complained about being picked on by the cops, about being moved on from shopping centres and kicked out of venues for being young, or for not being white and ‘Australian’, or for hanging out together, having fun. And they were right to complain, and she’d often taken up the cause of young people wrongly accused. Because they were a gang — which meant three or four kids standing around together — or looked like trouble. Because they were Sudanese or Vietnamese and weren’t speaking English. Because they were too loud. The problem was that sometimes it was difficult to tell if a group were going to be trouble or not. Sarah was a reasonable judge of character, but sometimes the young people she represented committed crimes that shocked her, even after more than eight years working in legal aid. Still, you had to make an honest case, as honest as you could — you were obliged to even when you wanted to say to the judge, You should lock this one up and throw away the key. You never did — they knew you never would.
The boys in the street were throwing something around. Sarah couldn’t see what it was. Not a ball. Something small and square. On the bench, a younger boy was crying. Sarah considered opening the window and yelling at them to give it back, but that would be a bad move — both for her and for the kid on the bench. She kept one eye on her files and one eye on the boys.
The day before, she’d interviewed Ashleigh’s boyfriend, Kevin. He hadn’t hesitated when Sarah had asked to meet. ‘Sure. Ash and Jo were mates. Whatever I can do to help.’ Now she read over her notes.
She had interviewed Kevin at his home in Brighton. The house was about as different to Jo’s as a house could be; it reminded Sarah of her parents’ place. Kevin’s mother and her mother probably bought their floral silk-screened curtains from the same South Yarra decorator. They probably went to the same dinner parties, the same theatre productions. The house, set back behind a high fence on a corner block, was what her mother would call substantial. A period home (Sarah had no idea which period) surrounded by a lush lawn and well-established trees — grey and ghost gums. Standing on the doorstep waiting, she pondered how Kevin had met Ashleigh. Sarah’s parents and their friends didn’t go to the western suburbs; they said things like, I never drive across the bridge unless we are going to Lorne. Recently, Sarah’s Aunt Sophie, her mother’s youngest sister, told them that a friend had dragged her out to Yarraville. ‘I was kicking and screaming, I kept saying, “No, why would I want to go there?” But, you know, I was pleasantly surprised. There are some nice boutiques and cafés. I bought the perfect little clutch bag for Annie.’
Kevin had been alone when Sarah arrived. He led her through the hallway and the kitchen to a small table in the garden. The view, like the house, was expansive. There was no sense of the surrounding suburb. The backyard sloped down to a tall hedge, beyond which Sarah could see a golf course. He offe
red her a tea and she accepted. When he brought it out, she could see he was shaking, and she reached out to take her cup. He was lanky and tall, dressed in black jeans and a white t-shirt. His black hair was wet, and since there was no pool, Sarah assumed he’d just had a shower.
‘Thanks for letting me come and talk to you,’ Sarah said.
‘No problem. I can’t concentrate on anything. Can’t study. Can’t work. Just been hanging around the house all day.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘What do people do?’ he asked.
‘Grief takes its own time.’
‘I want to talk about Ash all the time, and everyone’s getting sick of me. They don’t say anything, but I can sense it.’ He stopped speaking to pour the tea. ‘I don’t usually talk much, but now I can’t stop.’
‘You and Ashleigh were going out? You were her boyfriend?’
The garden was quiet, the only sounds coming from the rustling of the leaves in the breeze. Sarah poured milk into her tea and took a sip. English breakfast, her mother’s favourite tea.
‘Yeah, we met at the beginning of the year but had been going out for about six months.’
‘And you know Jo as well?’
‘A little. She’s Ash’s friend, but we get on okay and the three of us go — used to go — out together.’
‘Was that a problem?’
‘It was fine, not a problem. We go out in groups, with friends. Ash liked to party.’
‘Is Jo a party person too?’
‘I guess so. She likes to go out and dance and have fun. Ash is — was — more outgoing, though. She could talk to anyone. Made friends with people quickly. Jo’s shyer.’ Kevin seemed close to tears. ‘It’s hard to believe Ash’s gone. I keep expecting her to turn up.’
Sarah apologised and offered to leave. When she rang to make the appointment, she had spoken with Kevin’s mother before she talked to Kevin. There had been no hesitation on Mrs Tang’s part. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’m sure Kevin will talk to you.’ But now Sarah wondered if it’d been such a good idea for her to interview Kevin without at least one of his parents present.