by Claire Zorn
I focused my gaze on a fine crack that ran down the wall next to the bed, it looked like a river might, as seen from space, vast tracts of emptiness on either side.
‘Hannah?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Tell us what happened leading up to the accident, then. What happened that morning?’
‘I don’t remember anything from that morning,’ I tell them.
‘Really? Nothing at all?’
‘Nothing at all.’
They didn’t leave it at that. They spoke to my doctor and the nurses. They came and visited me at home. I couldn’t tell them anything.
It seemed bizarre that she could be killed so simply. Katie couldn’t be killed by something as ordinary as a car crash. I don’t think I really believed that she was dead until later when I saw her body. Sometimes I still don’t, it just seems too strange.
I was discharged from hospital two days after the accident. I was lucky. I had whiplash and a broken ankle. Nanna and Grandad came with Mum to take me home. As we came out of the hospital my mother broke down just outside the sliding doors.
‘I can’t leave without her,’ she said. ‘I have to take her home! I can’t leave her in that cold room.’
It was horrible. I felt like I wanted to vomit. The people standing around the front entrance, some in hospital gowns, some smoking, glanced at Mum and then quickly looked away. Nanna shushed Mum and she and Grandad led us to the car. You couldn’t tell Nanna was upset other than the tears that slid silently down her cheeks.
We came home and Nanna instructed Mum to take two of the sedatives she had been prescribed. The local paper was on the driveway. Grandad swiftly picked it up, in the hope we wouldn’t have to see the front page. But I saw the headline. Horror Smash Kills Teen! I felt angry that they had used such a cliché to describe what had happened, as if it were just another ordinary tragedy, comparable to every other story that had ever used that headline.
***
Twenty-three
Now, we get home and Mum doesn’t say anything else and neither do I. It feels looser between us, though. I go outside to the flat rock and I sit there watching the tops of the trees. For the first time in a long time there is no static in my head, no noise, just quiet. The type of quiet that comes after you have made a decision. After a while I hear the back door slide open and I turn, expecting to see Mum, but it isn’t, it’s my dad. He leans on his crutch and hobbles stiffly down the stairs to the path. He keeps his eyes on the ground in concentration and I can see the deep line between his eyebrows. I turn and look back up to the trees as he nears me.
‘Hey, Spanner.’
‘Hi.’
He lowers himself down onto the rock, sets the crutch leaning up against it.
‘You’re home early,’ I say.
‘I think we’re both a bit early today.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Mum rang me … She said that you feel you can make a statement.’ He pauses and looks up at the sky. ‘Whatever happened, Hannah, you tell them the truth.’
‘I will.’
‘I did something stupid, didn’t I? I’ve been able to feel it.’
I can’t answer him. I just shake my head.
‘Listen to me, Hannah. None of this is your fault.’ His eyes meet mine.
‘I disagree,’ I whisper.
‘Well. You’re wrong. Look at me, Hannah. Tell them exactly what you remember.’
‘Can Nan take me?’
‘To the police station?’
‘Yes.’
‘If that’s what you want, sure.’
On Tuesday morning she is at our house at eight o’clock with a fresh loaf of bread and a pot of home-made marmalade. She makes me and Dad toast for breakfast and instructs both of us to eat up. But I can’t.
In the car, the radio is turned up loud. Nanna doesn’t sing though, she just sighs a lot. And then she looks over at me.
‘What a bloody wretched business this is.’
I focus on pulling the breath into my lungs and letting it all out again. Like I’m swimming. We get to the police station and my hands shake when I open the car door. Nanna walks in beside me, chin up and shoulders squared.
Senior Constable Warner is younger than I remember her. Her brown eyes are carefully made-up, hair pulled into a sleek bun. She greets us and gives me a smile like a doctor who’s about to administer an injection.
‘Hi Hannah. Thank you for coming in today. We’re going to go into the interview room. Can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee? Water? I can probably even rustle up a Coke if you want?’ She speaks like a librarian, ushering us into a small room with a table and four plastic chairs. Nanna asks for two cups of water. When Constable Warner has left us she shifts her chair closer to mine.
‘I’m here,’ she says. ‘You’re not on your own.’
The policewoman returns with two plastic cups of water. She sits down and moves her chair in close to the table, folds her hands on its surface. Her fingernails are perfectly manicured and I wonder if they come in handy when she has to arrest people. Although I can’t imagine her arresting anyone.
‘Hannah, I’m going to be recording this conversation. If that’s okay with you, can you say “yes” for the tape?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you. I’m sorry we have to ask you to do this. I can imagine it’s very difficult, but the more information we have, the better judgement the magistrate can make. I would like you to tell me everything you remember about the accident from when you first got in the car.’
‘Okay.’
Nanna puts her hand on my shoulder and squeezes it. I tell them everything.
The sky is dark with clouds when we come out of the police station, the air thick and humid. Nanna holds my hand and puts me in the car. When we arrive home, my father is on the back deck, leaning on the rail, gaze cast out over the bush. The trees bend and moan in the wind. I go outside to where he is and the first few fat drops of rain begin to fall, speckling the baked concrete steps. He looks over to me.
‘Hannah, I am so, so sorry.’ His fragility tears at me. You’re not supposed to see your own father like this. I want to look away from him. He looks up at the sky, blinking in the rain that sweeps under the deck awning. He finds his voice again.
‘Whatever happens, Han. It will be okay. It will all be okay. We will all get through it.’
The only thing I have in my head is a picture of Katie, sitting there on my bed, crying over Jensen.
*
Thursday. I haven’t been to the cemetery since Katie’s funeral. It’s behind a golf course, on a hill dotted with turpentine trees. As we walk through the headstones I read the names and dates. There are a lot of loving and much-loved grandparents. Sometimes there are two graves side by side – husband and wife. There are a few children and when I read their epitaphs I feel as though I am intruding on someone else’s sadness, yet I can’t help but look. There are some headstones that are so old the writing has been eaten away by wind and rain, the things intended to remind us themselves faded.
Some graves have fresh flowers placed on them, even one that is twenty-two years old. There are a few with fake flowers: faded and brittle from the sun. Less maintenance, I guess.
My dad hobbles awkwardly over the uneven ground. Mum is next to him, but they don’t touch. When we reach Katie’s grave he lowers himself onto the ground. He kneels there amongst the parched grass, head bowed.
Katie’s headstone is white marble with black lettering and I can’t help wondering if it’s what she would have picked. I’ve heard people talk about graves as if they’re talking about the actual person, saying ‘we went to visit old Aunt Beryl’ or whoever, when they actually visited the grave. I don’t feel like that. Katie isn’t here. I don’t know where she is, but she wouldn’t be hanging around near a golf course with a bunch of old
people.
There’s a bouquet of fresh tiger lillies on her grave. Mum has brought purple tulips. She stands in front of the grave and looks at it for a little while. Then she puts the flowers down, leaning them against the marble.
‘Some of her friends must have been here,’ Mum says. ‘We miss you, beautiful girl.’
Twenty-four
People brought us meals for a while after the accident. My mother and I ate endless frozen lasagnes and shepherd’s pies. Actually, ‘ate’ is probably too strong a term. We defrosted them in the microwave and put them on our plates, that was about it. When Dad came home from hospital the meals stopped and it seemed strange to me. He was on crutches, his legs reassembled like a Meccano set. Not exactly the picture of domestic efficiency. I can’t help but wonder if there wasn’t another reason people stopped cooking for us.
The funeral was held at the church attached to the school. It was packed with people. Everyone in Katie’s year group was there, half of mine too, crammed into the back of the church, overflowing out the door. I walked past them all with Mum and Dad as we went up the front of the church to take our seats. The other students clutched tissues, sobbing and hugging each other. Most of them didn’t even know Katie – people she wouldn’t have spat on if they were on fire. There were students there who had pelted me with spitballs and constructed Facebook pages in my honour. The Clones were especially dramatic; black eyeliner running down their cheeks, they looked like clowns from a slasher movie. I felt a touch on my arm as I walked past them. Tara and Amy were standing there with gleaming hair and sad eyes.
‘I’m so sorry about your sister,’ Tara said. ‘You must be, like, so sad.’
I didn’t say anything.
‘You should totally come and sit with us when you come back to school,’ Tara said.
I walked away.
Before the service started, Charlotte’s mum, Karen, came over to us with Charlotte trailing hesitantly behind her. Karen hugged Mum and Dad and then me, squeezing me tight.
‘I’m so sorry, sweetie.’ She stood back. ‘We never see you anymore, Han. We miss you.’
Charlotte stepped forwards awkwardly. ‘Sorry about Katie,’ she mumbled. I wanted to slap her. Instead I just nodded and turned away.
People said the service was lovely. Mum couldn’t stand up, she sat on the pew sobbing while Dad held her hand. I listened to the prayers and the eulogy and felt numb, like I was watching a bad telemovie. Anything I did felt artificial: here is the grieving sister placing a rose on the coffin, here is the grieving sister handing the mum tissues, here is the grieving sister bowing her head in prayer. I was playing a bit part and not playing it very convincingly. Then the school choir sang ‘Stand By Me’ and I could see Katie standing next to me making gagging gestures.
Afterwards the students made a guard of honour and eight guys from her homeroom carried Katie in her coffin out to the hearse. One girl who I had never seen Katie with once was sobbing particularly loudly. I could feel Katie roll her eyes.
There was a wake in the church hall. I’ve never understood why it’s called a ‘wake’. Is it a last ditch effort to wake the dead person up? One last chance to make sure they are really sure about the whole being dead thing? ‘Good one, Katie! You really fooled us this time!’
The months after the funeral were silent. Time became stagnant when there was nothing left to organise.
I returned to school five weeks after Katie was killed. It was as long as I could stand being at home with my mother. She would sleep till noon then wander around the house, red-eyed and silent. The only break was when visitors came. They flooded in during the early weeks, bringing casseroles and teacakes. I think we would have set a world record with the amount of cups of tea that were made in the two weeks after Katie died, either drunk, or left to go cold next to the row of sympathy cards on the mantle. Gradually the flow of people ebbed, they started to phone instead – until there was nothing left to say.
It was Nan who took me to school the first day I returned. She drove me in her pale pink hatchback, rosary beads dangling from the rear-view mirror. (She’s not even Catholic.) I wanted her to drop me at the corner so I could walk up to the gate with no fuss and embarrassment. She wouldn’t, it was everything I could do to stop her sounding her horn in warning when we arrived. She pulled up to the gate and practically drove right through it. Faces looked up, eyes latched on. Nan glared at the other students like she wanted to attack them. ‘You can do this, Hannah,’ she said sternly.
I got out of the car and shut the door.
Eyes followed me up the path, through the front gate. I went into the toilets. The chatter that echoed off the tiled walls stopped, the girls crowing around the mirror looked at me for a moment, then looked to the floor. I went to roll call and everyone was quiet. Mr Black gave me a card, With Deepest Sympathy. It was signed by all the students in my class.
The Facebook pages disappeared. Nobody pelted me with spitballs or bits of clay. No one graffitied my stuff. It was like there was force field around me.
***
My mother has her hand on my shoulder, she steers me through the people who mill around in the foyer of the courthouse. Nanna and Grandad trail behind us. There are barristers in gowns, clutching takeaway coffees. A woman in a slim, black suit checks her lipstick in the reflection of a mirrored wall. Uniformed police talk in groups, heads bowed. A man in a tracksuit argues with a security guard. When we find the courtroom it isn’t what I was expecting, no polished oak panelling or high ceilings. Just a room with tables and plastic chairs, a raised bench at the front. Except for the wooden coat of arms, it’s like a classroom, almost, or a really cheap church.
Constable Warner arrives holding a cardboard tray with two takeaway cups. She hands me a hot chocolate and my mother a coffee. My mother’s hand shakes so much that she can’t hold it steady. ‘Thank God for lids,’ she says and Constable Warner laughs a little, pats my mother’s arm. A lawyer in a suit comes over and speaks with Constable Warner and my mother. I don’t listen. I keep my eyes on a doorway to the left of the front bench. There is a shadow hovering there and I wonder if it is my father. My body, my bones and muscle feel pulled to that doorway. Then a young guy with gelled hair and a baby-face tells us we are to rise for the magistrate.
Nothing after that feels real. My father sits in a chair next to his lawyer. The prosecutor calls my name and as I walk up to the stand I feel as though the floor is moving beneath each step that I take. I put my hand on the Bible and swear that every word I say will be the truth. The prosecutor is polite, not aggressive like they always are on television. She asks me questions. She asks me what colour the light was when he turned across the intersection. If it was already red when the truck came through. I tell her it wasn’t. I tell her about the phone ringing. My father sits with his eyes closed, tears streaming down his face.
The magistrate speaks about the impact the accident has had on our family, about the suffering and punishment already experienced by the death of Katie. She gives him a six-month suspended sentence. My mother is crying. I look to Constable Warner. She smiles at me. ‘He’s not going to prison.’
My mother and I sit at the dining table opposite one another. Dad has gone to bed, exhausted after the day. Nanna and Grandad have filled our pantry and washed all the sheets on our beds. My school uniform hangs pressed in my wardrobe. Mum wouldn’t let them stay and now we sit with a microwaved lasagne portion on each of our plates. The pedestal fan ticks and ticks, pushing warm air around the room. My mother looks up from her plate.
‘Do you want to go to school this week? It’s up to you. You have to do whatever you feel helps you …’
‘I think I will. If that’s okay.’
She nods, takes a sip of water from her glass. ‘You know, Hannah, we’re both very proud.’ Tears trickle down her cheeks. She sniffs, wipes at them. ‘Sometimes I think, my God, I’m
not even here, you must feel like your own mother has been replaced by some, some impostor. I know I haven’t done a good job of looking after us all.’ There is terror in her voice, in her face, and she looks at me pleadingly. ‘Hannah, I know this isn’t fair to ask you, I know, I know.’ She clenches her eyes shut for a moment. ‘But Hannah, was Katie awake? Did she say anything? I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just … It’s all I can ever think about, whether she was in pain …’
‘She looked at me. She was looking at me. And I was talking to her. I said the stupidest things, I made a joke about her trying to be a vegan. So stupid. And I talked to her about this boy she was seeing.’
‘She had a boyfriend?’
‘Jensen. He was lovely.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘She didn’t want you to know. I was talking to her and I could tell she could hear me, and then … then it was like she fell asleep.’
I watch my mother. Her gaze shifts into the middle distance between us. She puts her hands to her mouth, closes her eyes, her shoulders shake. I don’t tell her about the horrible rasping sound of Katie trying to breathe.
My mother wipes her cheeks with a tissue. She sniffs loudly, breathes as if she has just come up for air.
‘Hannah, I love you, very, very much. You know that, don’t you? If you weren’t here … I don’t know … I don’t think I could be here either.’
‘I know, Mum.’
I stand up and clear our plates from the table.
The air in the café is cool, big ceiling fans whirl steadily. Most of the tables are empty. He is sitting at a chair by the counter, newspaper on his knee, an almost-finished coffee in his hand. He doesn’t look at me, but stands and walks behind the machine.
‘What can I get you?’
‘Hi Jensen.’
When he looks at me his expression is almost one of fright. He takes a small step backwards.
‘It’s Hannah. Hannah McCann.’
‘Shit. Sorry. You, um …’ he shakes his head. ‘You look like your sister. I … sorry. How are you?’