Trip of a Lifetime

by Liz Byrski

  Shaun retied the jewellery roll, pushed it to the back of the drawer and returned the key to its hiding place, seething with anger and resentment. He had trusted her and she had abused that trust. He had warned her that if she kept using it would all be over, and he’d warned her again when he once caught her dropping ecstasy at a party. The final warning had been delivered the day she moved in.

  ‘No drugs, not even any dope, not yours, not anyone else’s.’

  ‘Sure, sweetheart,’ she’d said, kissing him. ‘You know I don’t do that anymore.’

  ‘I hope so,’ he’d said, ‘’cos I’m serious. One strike and you’re out.’

  ‘The drugs are off. Honest, dead and gone, Shaun, I promise.’

  Shaun turned off the bedroom light, went back downstairs and sat watching the remainder of the film without seeing it. Then he got up again, washed up his plate, binned his stubby, and picked up the phone.

  When Ellis booked the serviced apartment in Elizabeth Bay he chose it for convenience. Discovering that he was staying a mere ten-minute walk from Heather’s unit confirmed his feeling that this reunion was meant to be.

  ‘I do have some work I need to get through today,’ Heather said on the phone the morning after their first dinner, ‘but would you like to meet up later this afternoon – a walk, perhaps?’

  Ellis, who was in Sydney for two reasons, the main one being to re-establish his connection with Heather, said that he would love it.

  The harsh afternoon sunlight had faded, parents were packing children into cars, and a few strolling couples remained on the broad, tree-lined pathways of the Domain. Ellis was attuned to the spirit of the moment, the chance it offered to take them further along his chosen course.

  ‘I’m so glad you wanted to meet,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking about you nonstop. You meant so much to me all those years ago, Heather, and you still do.’ He stopped walking; she turned towards him and he kissed her lightly, quickly, on the lips.

  ‘You meant just as much to me,’ she said, ‘and you picked the right time to come back. That bullet didn’t only rip into my shoulder, it ripped through my sense of myself as well. The past is really powerful, isn’t it? Last night I realised that I’d almost forgotten the person I was with you, and now you’ve given me back something of her – of the girl I used to be.’

  ‘But there are other people who knew you then,’ Ellis said. ‘Your brother, your aunt.’

  Heather nodded. ‘But somehow having always been with them makes it different,’ she said. ‘The changes are incremental – we look at each other and see what we expect to see from day to day. You look at me and see the person I was. You have expectations of her, I think . . .’ She paused. ‘And I think I probably see a part of you that others don’t see. I look in your eyes and see the Ellis of all those years ago. It’s such a gift, the opportunity to see ourselves as we were. Oh dear, this probably sounds incredibly silly and New Agey. I never talk like this.’

  A couple of teenagers on skateboards hustled noisily past them. Ellis took Heather’s arm as she moved out of their path. He knew the first hurdle was cleared. At dinner he had shocked her, had taken a risk and challenged her, and her discomfort had been obvious. By the time the taxi drew up outside her door she had been cool and distant. She thanked him for dinner and disappeared inside without a backward glance, and he was left wondering if he had pushed her too far too soon. Driven by his desire to recapture the romance of the past, he was now determined to draw it into dramatic connection with the present. He had loved her once, and since reading about the shooting he had become convinced that he had always loved her. They were partners, Ellis now believed, in a dance performed across the decades, a dance that circled inevitably back to its starting point.

  ‘It doesn’t sound silly at all,’ he said now. ‘But I can see that it’s unfamiliar territory for you. It was to me at first, when I left the law and did my sea change thing. But after a while I discovered the pleasure and the power of resisting cynicism and listening to my inner wisdom. Some people really can’t handle it. It takes something dramatic to help them break out of their shell.’

  ‘A shell,’ Heather said, turning to him. ‘Yes, I suppose that’s what it is. And when it cracks, it leaves you exposed.’

  ‘Exactly. When something terrible happens, the change that it creates provides a silver lining.’

  Her expression was soft and uncertain now, so different from the chiselled lines that he had seen at the dinner table. He reached out and brushed aside a strand of hair that had blown across her face.

  She laughed, embarrassed. ‘So much grey, I’m getting old. Remember how much I used to hate the copper colour? Now I’d give my right arm to have it back.’

  ‘It’s softer now,’ he said. ‘I like it. Age robs us of many things, Heather, but beauty is not one of them, because, of course, it comes from within.’

  Heather laughed again. ‘Heavens, Ellis, you’ll be writing verses for greeting cards next.’

  Ellis was stung, but he persisted. ‘It’s true and you know it, you just don’t know how to respond with anything other than cynicism.’

  ‘Well . . .’ she faltered, ‘that certainly put me in my place.’

  ‘Your place? What place is that, Heather?’ he asked. ‘I thought we were moving towards the same place.’

  She blushed deeply. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I was being stupid, flippant. Like I said, I’m not used to talking like this. It’s a bit confronting . . . give me time.’

  ‘You can have all the time you want,’ he said, taking her hand and smiling, sensing he’d won a small battle. ‘Be gentle with yourself, you’ve had a lot to cope with.’

  She nodded. ‘Being shot was awful, but not knowing who did it or why makes it so much worse. This week, when I thought they’d got someone, it was such a relief and then it turned out to be you. Strange, really; disappointment and delight hand in hand.’

  Ellis nodded. ‘Of course, but the answer lies with you, Heather, not with the perpetrator.’

  She shook her head. ‘It’ll be much better when they find him.’

  Ellis shrugged. ‘Well, you’ll stop worrying about him trying again, that specific threat will disappear. But do you think that will really be the end of it? What about the chaos he’s created? Will finding him and locking him up fix all that? I think you might find that it’s just the tip of the iceberg, that once he’s safely under lock and key, the real challenge will begin.’

  *

  ‘But whatever’s the matter?’ Diane asked. Although she hadn’t been asleep, the lateness of Shaun’s call agitated her. ‘Can’t you tell me now? Why does it have to be tomorrow morning?’

  ‘We need to sort something out,’ he said, in the same tone he used with difficult constituents. ‘It may take a while. Just tell me you’ll meet me in the Eurobar tomorrow morning.’

  She hesitated. It occurred to her that this wasn’t an emergency but a surprise. They were going to tell her they were getting engaged and she warmed immediately to the prospect of meeting.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘That’ll be lovely, I’ll see you both there.’

  ‘Just me, Diane,’ Shaun said. ‘Charlene’s not coming. She doesn’t know I’m calling. I need to talk to you alone. I’ll see you at nine.’

  Of course! He was actually going to ask her permission. It was the sort of odd, old-fashioned thing Shaun would do. She hung up smiling and lay down again thinking of engagement parties and weddings, all with a great sense of relief that Charlene’s wild days were over and she was really settling down at last.

  The following morning, Diane walked into the Eurobar right on time to find Shaun hunched over an espresso and looking distinctly uncomfortable. ‘Hangover?’ she enquired, but in what she hoped was an encouraging, even affectionate tone. And she slid into the seat opposite him.

  ‘Not me, I stayed home,’ he said dryly. ‘Charlene’s still sleeping hers off. She didn’t come home till four.’
/>   Diane sighed. ‘Those girlfriends aren’t a good influence. Can’t you get her away from them?’

  Shaun paused, looking at her for a moment, and then tossed back his coffee in one gulp. ‘We have more than girlfriends to worry about,’ he said, signalling the waiter so they could order more coffee. ‘A lot more.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Diane said dismally when he told her about the pills. But of course she did believe it; she’d been there before and, like Shaun, had thought that Danny and the drugs were now a thing of the past. But the drugs were only a part of it.

  ‘There’s more,’ Shaun said. ‘When I leave here, I’m going home to tell Charlene it’s over, she has to move out. I wanted you to be clear about why I’m doing it, because she’ll probably turn up on your doorstep later in the day.’

  ‘Over!’ Diane said. ‘What, you mean you’re ending it because you found a few drugs –’

  ‘Not a few, Diane. Far more than Charlene can afford, far more than she’d need for her own use. Maybe she’s not using but my bet is that she’s dealing for Danny.’

  ‘She wouldn’t,’ Diane protested. ‘She wouldn’t do that. And, anyway, even if you’re right, this is no time for you to be dumping her. She needs your support.’

  ‘She’s had that,’ Shaun said, ‘for more than six months, and by letting her get away with it again I’d just be enabling her to dig herself further into this mess. You realise it’s possible she was dealing while she was still at your place?’

  ‘She wouldn’t, she couldn’t . . . I would have known.’

  ‘Would you? I didn’t. I found most of these in her dressing table drawer. It was locked but I found the key.’

  Diane clasped a hand to her mouth. ‘The left-hand drawer? It was always locked. I thought she had letters or something private in there.’

  ‘She did,’ Shaun said with a wry smile. ‘Look, I made her promise and she broke that promise twice. This is the third time and it’s much more serious than I’d imagined. Perhaps if I’d pulled the plug earlier it would have brought her to her senses and it mightn’t have got to this stage. Besides, Diane, I have some rights in this too. I don’t have to put up with being lied to, with having drugs in my house – maybe sold from my house.’

  Diane shrugged angrily. ‘Oh, you . . . you’re just thinking of yourself. Just like all men, selfish, thoughtless and incapable of being faithful.’

  Shaun sat back raising both hands, his palms towards her. ‘Whoa!’ he said. ‘Lay off. That’s your stuff. I haven’t been near anyone else since I started going out with Charlene. Look, I know you’re upset but you have to face up to what’s happening.’

  ‘You have to put a stop to it,’ Diane said, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, ‘not just ditch her when she needs you.’

  ‘No.’ Shaun shook his head. ‘This is not my responsibility, and it’s not yours either. It’s down to Charlene; she has to make up her mind what she wants. She has to take responsibility for her own behaviour.’

  Diane drove home knowing Shaun was right. She still resented what she saw as his opting out but the time had come to take a firmer line. Charlene was not a teenager, she was twenty-five, and it was time she got her act together. She would lay it out for her, no holds barred, make some rules, maybe even use Shaun’s ‘one strike and you’re out’ line. But nothing prepared her for her daughter’s arrival on the doorstep later that day, surrounded by carrier bags of clothes and a large pink fake Gucci holdall.

  ‘He turned me out,’ Charlene wept as the cab pulled away from the drive, ‘just like that. I went to this party without him and I came home late and he just said, it’s over, it’s over, just like that.’

  Diane gathered up the bags from the doorstep and drew Charlene into the house. She would give her a chance to come clean voluntarily, then she could set out the rules. But Charlene was in crisis, against which all the good intentions in the world were no defence, and it didn’t take Diane long to work out that the confrontation, the rules, the firmer line would all have to wait; meanwhile, she would be firm, sympathetic and stay calm.

  Several days later, though, Charlene was still in denial, blaming everything on Shaun, and Diane had a sickening sense of déjà vu as she called her daughter’s boss and made an excuse for her absence. How many times had she done this while Charlene slept off the previous night’s excess? How often had she believed the promises that it wouldn’t happen again? It seemed shocking to her now that she had been able to ignore the reality of what was happening. Shaun had provided a welcome interlude but now she and Charlene were back where they had started, only it was worse this time, because Diane could no longer pretend to herself that it wasn’t happening. That was when she decided she might take Shaun’s advice.

  ‘Can’t her dad help?’ Shaun had asked. ‘I think you need to get him in on it; otherwise, as soon as you crack down on her she’ll be running to him.’

  And so the next day found her sitting in a small Italian restaurant in The Junction waiting irritably for the one person she had never wanted to speak to, let alone see, ever again. Her fingers drummed nervously on the table; she was far too early but driven out of the house by anxiety. Now she wished she had timed it to make him wait. She had spent far too much of her life waiting around for Gerry. What good would it do talking to him, anyway? He had, after all, deserted them to live with this other woman; a woman she had never met but quite naturally hated, a woman whose name she couldn’t bear to think of let alone speak. And now here she was, already worn out with waiting, and it was still fifteen minutes before he was due. Diane swallowed the last of her glass of water and, as she reached for the bottle to refill it, in he walked. It was the first time she had seen him since the divorce, and her initial reaction was shock. He looked younger, fitter, but softer too, more like the man she had first fallen in love with. Gerry glanced around, spotted her at the corner table and made his way across the restaurant.

  ‘You’re early,’ was all she could think of to say as he smiled and pulled out a chair.

  ‘And you’re earlier,’ he said. ‘You sounded worried, so I didn’t want to keep you waiting.’

  Diane swallowed the urge to mention that it was a shame he hadn’t been so thoughtful during more than thirty years of marriage. No point starting off on the wrong foot.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I am worried. It’s about Charlene.’

  ‘Well, I realised that,’ he said, picking up the menu. ‘Do you want to order or talk first?’

  ‘Talk,’ she said. ‘But maybe you want to order a drink?’

  Gerry shook his head. ‘I’ve given up,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘Twenty-three months and counting,’ and he picked up the bottle of water and filled his own glass. ‘So, tell me, what’s our girl been up to this time?’

  SIX

  Daisy was confused. Strange things were going on at home and she didn’t know what to make of it. Kirsty had moved out and Daisy missed her dreadfully. She’d been back lots of times of course, but it wasn’t the same as having her living in the house, turning up at bedtime to play scary games or tickle Daisy until she screamed.

  ‘I miss you,’ she’d whined when Kirsty and Nick came over to sit with her one evening. ‘It makes everything different.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got two of us here tonight,’ Kirsty had grinned, grabbing her and cuddling her between them on the settee. ‘Two for the price of one. So shut up and find the remote, cos we’ve got Lemony Snicket on DVD.’

  And that was the other thing. Most times when Kirsty came over, Nick came too, so Daisy had to share her. It didn’t seem fair – Nick had Kirsty all the rest of the time, after all. But the weirdest thing was that Toby had suddenly started being nice to her. It bugged Daisy at first because she thought he was setting her up for something. But then she’d discovered that Bree Adams, who was thirteen and wore fake tattoos and had four earrings in one ear, had agreed to be his girlfriend. Daisy learned this from her own best friend, Sam, who had heard
it from her older sister who was Bree’s best friend. Daisy thought Bree Adams must be seriously mental to let Toby be her boyfriend but, as her Aunt Barbara often said, there was no accounting for taste, and it was certainly making Daisy’s life a lot easier.

  But Toby’s love life didn’t account for her parents being weird.

  Adam was distinctly grumpy and most unlike the description she’d written a few months ago in a school composition: My Dad is called Adam, he plays the cello in a bedroom and his job is being first cello in an orchestra. He is tall and he has blue eyes and grey hare. He always tells me answers to queschuns. He is very smiley and cuddeley. Mum says he has a soft center.

  But Adam hadn’t been smiley or cuddly over the last few weeks, and Daisy was more likely to get a grunt than a proper answer to a question. Jill was different too. Daisy was used to her mother being busy and tired, but she didn’t seem to laugh so much now and when Daisy needed to discuss important things, like why she wasn’t allowed to wear black leggings, or what rhymed with orange, Jill always seemed to be thinking about something else.

  Hanging upside down in the tyre that swung from the branch of the Moreton Bay fig in the front garden, Daisy wondered what was going on. Usually her parents seemed sort of glued together. It was hard to sneak in between them if you wanted to get one to agree to something before you started trying to convince the other.

  ‘They form a united front,’ Kirsty had said once when Daisy mentioned this. ‘United they stand, divided they fall.’

  ‘Why would they fall down?’ Daisy had asked, confused.

  ‘Well, they wouldn’t actually fall, not on the ground,’ Kirsty said. ‘It’s like . . . it’s a figure of speech.’

  Daisy still didn’t get it. Jill and Adam didn’t seem cross with each other, but it was as though there was an empty space between them where anyone could just walk in. And while this had certain practical advantages, it actually didn’t make Daisy feel good and she wasn’t sure why. She wanted to ask questions but for once her instincts warned her that it might be best to pretend that everything was normal.