Fractured

by Barker, Dawn

  Ursula had done her best; she had always done her best to look after her family. It just felt like it wasn’t good enough.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Four months after

  Saturday, 16 January 2010

  Anna watched Tony’s car drive towards the house. When he pulled up she opened the passenger door and got in.

  ‘Have you been waiting long?’ he said, without looking at her, as he drove off.

  She shook her head. ‘No. Just wanted to get away from Mum, though I’m sure she’s been watching through the window.’

  She saw Tony smile slightly and then they drove for the rest of the five-minute journey in silence. She tried to keep her legs still, though her limbs crawled with anxiety. She clenched and unclenched her hands, then smoothed down imaginary strands of her hair, wishing they could get there faster. As soon as Tony slowed down near an empty parking spot on a side street, she knew he was taking her to the little trattoria nearby. Before they had Jack they used to eat here at least once a week.

  Tony reversed into the space, then switched off the engine. He looked at Anna; she wanted to reach over and touch him, but instead unbuckled her seatbelt.

  ‘Do you want to go and get a table?’ he said.

  ‘OK, see you in there.’ She got out of the car and closed the door. It was just like before: she would go and get a table, and Tony would go to the bottle shop next door and buy a bottle of red. What did he mean by bringing her here? In one way, she was thrilled: perhaps he was telling her that they could recover some of the life they used to have. But she was also incredibly sad as it reminded her what she had lost.

  The restaurant was cramped and noisy, and strong smells of garlic and oregano spilled from the kitchen. Anna was shown to a small table near the window; she squeezed past the couple huddled at the next table and sat down. The waitress left a bottle of water; Anna poured two glasses. As she tried not to listen to the couple’s conversation, she realised that Tony must have chosen this place for practical, not emotional reasons: it was so public, they would have to be civil to each other, and it prevented them both from talking about the real issues. She stared at the menu, trying to distract herself from the impulse to cry and run out of the restaurant.

  When Tony walked in she sat up straighter, waving to him as he looked around for her. He smiled, then made his way over and sat down. He took a bottle of pinot – one of their favourites – out of the brown paper bag and unscrewed it. She pushed the wine glasses towards him and he poured them both a large drink.

  She took a sip of her wine, hoping the alcohol would relax her quickly. Tony took a big gulp of his, then topped up his glass and leaned back. She watched him over her glass, wishing that this was just a normal meal out together. She had missed him so much.

  He picked up the laminated menu, frowned as he looked at it, then put it down again. ‘The usual?’ he said.

  She nodded, and smiled. ‘Sounds good.’

  Tony raised his hand to attract the attention of a waitress. Anna wanted to put her hand on his and tell him to slow down. She wanted to spend every minute she could with him, but he seemed intent on getting this over with as quickly as possible. The waitress came over with her notepad, and Tony ordered: one bruschetta, one caprese salad, and one large ham, olive and artichoke pizza. When the waitress left, Anna watched Tony fiddle with his napkin, then his glass.

  ‘I’m glad it’s cooled down a bit,’ he said.

  Oh Tony, she wanted to say, let’s not talk about the weather. He looked so sad, so lost. She wanted to reach over and grab him and never let him go. He hadn’t deserved any of this. Her stomach wrenched with pity and regret.

  She tried to keep her voice steady. ‘Me too, after such a humid day.’

  He nodded, then twirled the wine bottle towards him and started reading the label.

  ‘So, how are you, Tony?’ She cringed: her attempt at conversation was no better than his.

  ‘I’m OK,’ he said. ‘Well, I’ve been better.’

  She nodded, looked down at her place setting, then straightened the napkin.

  ‘How about you?’ he asked.

  She tried to smile. ‘Same, been better …’

  ‘Is everything OK with, well, the illness? Your tablets?’

  ‘Yes. I’m “normal” now, apparently. I’m seeing Dr Morgan again on Monday, and I’m still on the antidepressants, of course. I just have to keep seeing her every week and take it as it comes.’

  ‘That’s good to hear. I’m glad.’

  She looked up at him and frowned. ‘Are you? Sometimes I think it would be easier for everyone if I’d stayed crazy, or if they’d locked me up. People could forget I ever existed.’ She shook her head and bit her lip at the bitterness in her voice. ‘Sorry.’ She picked up her wine and took a sip. ‘I suppose what I mean is that it would be easier for me to be a coward and be locked away so I could avoid dealing with life.’

  ‘Don’t say that, Anna. You’d never survive in prison. That’s not where you should be.’ His voice quivered; he reached for his wine glass.

  Anna blinked a few times, trying not to cry. So he didn’t want her jailed; did he forgive her? She spoke quietly. ‘Do you hate me, Tony?’

  He closed his eyes and didn’t answer straightaway. She wished she hadn’t asked him: what if it wasn’t the answer she hoped for? She was still playing games with him, trying to get him to say what she needed to hear.

  ‘Sorry, forget I said that. I just keep feeling so bloody sorry for myself and I hate myself for it.’ She grabbed her glass again and took a gulp of wine.

  Tony sighed. ‘I did hate you, Anna. Shit, I didn’t know how to feel. I still don’t. I’ve gone through every emotion you can imagine, emotions I didn’t even know existed. I just couldn’t understand how …’ He looked around him, then spoke quietly. ‘I’m still trying to get my head around it. I know, logically, that you were ill, really ill. But I can’t help it – when I look at you, I just don’t know how you could have done it.’ His eyes glistened with tears.

  She looked away and dabbed at her own eyes with her napkin. ‘I don’t know either.’ She rubbed her hands over her face then looked up at him. ‘All I can say is that I’m so sorry. So sorry.’

  Tony shook his head. ‘Don’t say sorry again.’ He looked up at the ceiling. ‘I still keep picturing him —’

  Anna put her hand up in front of her. ‘Don’t, please, I don’t want to talk about Jack.’

  He glared at her. His eyes were dry now, and he looked at her accusingly. Anna’s heart pounded as she waited for him to speak. She knew that he was preparing himself for something, and that she needed to let him say it, no matter what it was. This was why she was here. But what he did say shocked her.

  ‘I got your letter.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘What? What letter?’

  He shook his head, eyes narrowed. ‘Your letter, the letter you left for me to find.’

  ‘Tony, I —’

  ‘Do you have any idea what that did to me? There I was, assuming that something terrible had happened to you, that someone had raped you or tried to kill you and Jack, and then, just like that, out of my bag falls an envelope with my name on it in your handwriting! I defended you, Anna, trusted you completely. I told them to look for some other explanation: there was no way that my wife, Jack’s mother, could have done something like this!’

  Acid and thick red wine churned in Anna’s stomach and rose up her throat; she felt sick. She didn’t know what he was talking about. ‘Tony, I don’t —’

  ‘Do you want me to show you your suicide note? It’s still in the glove box of my car. I had to hide it there so the police didn’t arrest you immediately or use it against you. I had to lie to everyone: my family, your family, the police! I told myself that maybe I’d misread it, misunderstood what you meant, that maybe you were just going to leave me, that you didn’t intend to actually kill yourself —’

  ‘Please, Tony! I don’t know what yo
u mean!’ The room spun around her and she wanted to run, but she couldn’t move. All she could do was stare at Tony in horror.

  He lowered his voice and practically spat his words at her. ‘I’ll remind you. I know it off by heart – I’ve read it hundreds, maybe thousands of times. Tony, I’m sorry to do this to you, but I’ve got no choice. This is the only way to save you and Jack. He deserves better than me, you both do. I’m sorry, I’ve got no choice.’ Tony gritted his teeth and Anna could see that his eyes were wet again. As she stared at him, her mind blank, he spoke more gently.

  ‘But you did have a choice, Anna. That’s what I can’t bear.’

  She shook her head, unable to take any of this in. Did she write a letter like that? Had she even known what she was doing? Had she had a choice?

  ‘At first, I thought maybe the letter meant you were leaving me, leaving us, just going away somewhere, and there’d been an accident. You’d left Jack’s clothes, his milk. But then you would have taken your clothes, your phone. You knew you wouldn’t need them, didn’t you? God, there was less than an hour between me leaving and Mum arriving at the house – how long had you been planning this?’

  Anna’s mouth was bone dry. ‘I don’t know,’ she rasped.

  He pointed his finger at her. His face was red. ‘You wanted to top yourself, but why the hell did you have to take the baby? Why the hell didn’t you wait for Mum like I told you to, or just leave Jack behind in his cot? Then he’d have been OK.’

  His chin shook and he collapsed back in his chair. Anna watched him take deep breaths and wipe his eyes with his trembling hands. She opened her mouth to speak, but had nothing to say. She just shook her head, shocked. Leaning over the table she reached for his hand.

  ‘Don’t! Don’t you dare!’ Tony glared at her, then scraped his chair back and stood up. ‘Excuse me.’ He walked towards the restaurant toilets.

  She reeled back in her chair as if she’d been shot. She had vague images in her mind of scribbling something on a piece of paper and finding an envelope in the kitchen drawer, but the memories were too hazy. Tony wouldn’t lie, though; she must have written those things.

  The waitress sauntered over to the table and put the bruschetta and two side plates down, politely pretending not to notice Anna’s tears. Anna didn’t move.

  When Tony came back, he picked up a piece of the bread and chewed furiously. Anna made herself take a piece too. They were both silent. She wished that they were having a normal argument about money, infidelity even. She wished she could tell everyone here that none of that mattered, not really. She slumped in her chair. She still didn’t know what to do. Any hope that Tony would tell her he forgave her and wanted to come home was gone.

  As they continued to eat in silence, she sensed the tension fade. Each of them let the past slip away, replaced by sorrow and regret. Anna ate automatically, and was surprised and sad when she realised that the meal was almost over. Tony insisted that she eat the last piece of pizza, and smiled at her almost apologetically; she could have wept.

  ‘Do you want to go for a walk?’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘Yes, that would be nice.’

  ‘I’ll go and pay. Meet you outside.’

  * * *

  Anna and Tony walked along the street until they reached the park. It wasn’t quite dark yet, but the floodlights shone on the rugby pitch, where some teenagers were throwing themselves into tackles. They sat on a bench at the edge of the grass, both with their hands in their laps, and watched.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ he asked.

  Anna noticed that he had said ‘you’, not ‘we’. She sighed. ‘I don’t know. Mum’s asked me to go back to Western Australia with her, but I don’t want to. Maybe I’ll go there for a break, but ultimately I want to stay here.’

  Tony nodded.

  She bit her lip, then glanced at him. ‘How about you?’

  He didn’t return her gaze; he focused on the kids, now sprinting up and down the pitch between cones. ‘Well, I’m just doing what I always do. Going to work, that’s about all. Had enough of living with Mum, though,’ he said, smiling.

  Anna paused. She spoke quietly. ‘I can move out if you want. Or … you could come back home.’

  Tony immediately shook his head. ‘Sean’s offered me his spare room. I think I’ll go there for a while.’

  Anna’s lip started to tremble. She should never have asked him like that; now, she had no hope left. He’d told her where she stood. She nodded, kicked at a tuft of grass at her feet. ‘That’s a good idea.’ She had to ask, even though she didn’t really want to hear the answer. ‘What about us?’

  Tony stretched his neck back to stare at the sky. He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I don’t know, Anna.’ He was crying now, she realised. ‘I miss you … but I just can’t … I just can’t be with you.’

  ‘Ever?’ she whispered, her heart thumping.

  ‘I don’t know. I hope it gets easier … with time. But it just hurts me too much. It wouldn’t be any good for either of us. I’m sorry.’

  Anna nodded slowly. ‘It’s OK. I knew you’d say that.’

  Tony moved his hand across the endless space between them and put it on her knee. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She longed to grab him and bury her head in his chest, but instead she put her hand on top of his and squeezed tightly. A few moments later, they stood up without saying anything and headed back to the car.

  They both had tears in their eyes.

  * * *

  That night, Anna lay alone on her half of the soft king-sized bed. She had never found the gold wristwatch that Tony had given her for their anniversary, and her wedding ring was still loose on her finger. She curled her left hand into a fist and felt the ring slip towards her knuckle. She hadn’t noticed if Tony had been wearing his. She had been too afraid to look.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book may never have evolved past the earliest drafts without the support of the Queensland Writers Centre/Hachette Australia Manuscript Development Program, which gave me the confidence to think of myself as a writer. Thanks to all at the QWC who took part, in particular Kim Wilkins, who helped to shape this book from the first paragraph.

  Thanks also to my agent, Benython Oldfield, and my publisher, Vanessa Radnidge, for believing in Fractured from the beginning and encouraging me to keep going with it.

  For reading endless early drafts and supporting me the whole way, thanks to David Thornby and Vicky Dawes. For giving me insights into police and court procedures, thanks to Ray Sieber and Laura Spence.

  The book would not be what it is today without the entire Hachette team, especially Kate Ballard and her sharp pencil, Roberta Ivers, Clara Finlay, Fiona Hazard, Matt Richell, Marie Isaacson, Anna Hayward and all those behind the scenes.

  Thank you most of all to my family near and far, especially those nearest: Will, Isobel, Isla and Olivia.

  If you or anyone you know is experiencing emotional difficulties, there are people who can help you. Here are some suggestions:

  • Your local GP or health-care professional.

  • Lifeline, which provides 24-hour telephone crisis support. Call 13 11 14.

  • SANE Australia can advise on how to access assistance in your area. Visit www.sane.org or call 1800 18 SANE (7263).

  • beyondblue, the national depression initiative, has an information line. Call 1300 22 4636.

  • The Family Crisis Service (after hours only) can be accessed on 02 9622 0522 or 02 9622 0313.

  If you need urgent help, you can call 000 or visit your local hospital emergency department.

  Fractured

  DAWN BARKER

  READING GROUP NOTES

  A READER’S INTRODUCTION

  TO THE BOOK

  Fractured is the intensely powerful story of a family torn apart by a tragedy that pivots on the events of one day, all the pieces of the jigsaw gradually fitting together as the story builds to its devastating and inevitable co
nclusion.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Dr Dawn Barker (pictured left) is a child psychiatrist. She grew up in Scotland, and studied Medicine at Aberdeen University. In 2001 she moved to Australia, completed her psychiatric training and began writing.

  Fractured is her first novel, although she has written many non-fiction articles on parenting and psychiatry for websites and magazines. She has also published academic articles on mental health and writing.

  Dawn lives in Perth, Western Australia, with her husband and three young children.

  www.authordawnbarker.com

  Follow Dawn on Twitter: @drdawnbarker

  THE BACKGROUND TO

  FRACTURED

  I had thought about writing Fractured for a long time – years in fact. I started it dozens of times, but never got further than a page or two before I declared that I couldn’t write and was wasting my time. While working full time as a doctor, I didn’t really have the time or emotional space to tackle such a big project. However, when I had my first baby, I found myself at home on maternity leave with only a newborn for company, and I knew that if I was ever going to write a novel, then that was the time. I signed up for an online novel-writing course through Queensland Writers Centre and I wrote 500 words each day while my baby napped until it was finished. After a couple of redrafts, I entered the manuscript into the 2010 Hachette/Queensland Writers Centre Manuscript Development Program and was lucky enough to be chosen to participate. The program gave me invaluable insights into the world of publishing, but more importantly, confidence in myself and the book.

  QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

  WITH DAWN BARKER