Crashing Down (17 page)

They sit in silence.

Lucy starts to panic. What if the Kapulettis shout at her? Prevent her from coming in? Why did she have to think of that? Now it's all she can think of.

‘Mr and Mrs K aren't speaking to me,' she says softly.

‘Why?' JD asks, and the looks of surprise on the others' faces confirm they have no idea about the pregnancy or the injunction.

‘I think they blame me.'

‘Shit, mate. No.' Al puts an arm around her. ‘No one does. It's not your fault.'

She shrugs. ‘Do you think I should go tomorrow?'

‘Yes,' they all say in unison. ‘For sure.'

Ben offers to pick her up. She shakes her head. ‘Thanks, but my parents will take me.'

She picks up her bag. ‘Gotta go.' She feels like she might vomit again.

‘See you tomorrow,' Ben calls as Mr Tan walks her to the door.

‘See ya then,' she calls back.

‘Stay strong,' Mr Tan says, hugging her.

‘I'm trying to.' She fights more tears.

‘No.' He squeezes her hard. ‘You don't have to try — you are.'

Lucy looks at herself in the mirror. She feels terrible, yet she glows. That's a weird feeling and a strange term, but she does. Her skin literally shimmers with life. The saddest and cruellest twist of all. Life is brimming inside her while Carl lies dead. Life brims inside her and all she wants to do is end it. She is going to Carl's funeral. The final farewell. She sits on the edge of her bed and cries again. So many tears. They never seem to end.

It's a warm day and she finally settles on the dress she wore to the school ball. It's strapless, long and flowing, blue silk with an overlay of velvet-style lace. Carl had loved it — they had been so happy then, so together. It seems like the right choice.

‘Ready?' her mum calls.

‘No.' She twists up another section of her hair and glances again at her reflection.
When will I ever be ready for this?
‘Yes, coming.' She turns off the bathroom light.

Downstairs Mum and Dad are talking softly.

‘Okay, Rabbit?' Dad says, seeing her. ‘You look beautiful.'

‘Thanks,' Lucy says, ‘I feel awful.'

But she won't let the tears escape now. She's had her cry.
Be strong — be tough — stand tall.

The drive to the cemetery is long. They haven't joined the cavalcade from the funeral parlour — Lucy couldn't bear it. When they arrive, the coffin is already being lifted from the hearse. The vision of it almost stills her heart. Inside that box is Carl. And he is dead. She shakes the tears and thoughts away.

‘Okay?' Mum says, grabbing her hand as they walk inside.

Lucy nods. She's glad she's worn waterproof mascara — then chastises herself for being so shallow.
Who on Earth thinks of that, at a time like this?

Ben and Al are pallbearers. Al is struggling. He
can lift the coffin easily, single-handedly even, but his face is grief and tears and sadness.

The room is already full. The benches occupied. And people stand at the back against the windows. There must be more than four hundred people. Through the masses she sees the Kapulettis at the front, heads bowed and sobbing. Behind them, family members Lucy has met over the last year or so. Before them, a slideshow of Carl plays — as a baby, a toddler, first day of kindy, school, winning fairest and best, a random birthday party. The photos chronologically display his growth and development until she recognises her Carl. Long and lean. Teeth too big. Then handsome and kind. Hot as — even her granny had thought so. ‘A movie star's looks,' she'd whispered to Lucy when he went into the next room. The next photo jolts her. It's the two of them at the school ball. Then at the Swan River. All the ones that follow are of him and her.

She looks away. People are turning to see if she's here. She's been spotted.

Al and Ben and the other pallbearers bring the coffin in, and Uncle Benito stands and takes the mike.

‘Carlo was a beautiful boy,' Benito says. His voice wavers slightly but he regains control. ‘A kind and caring lad. A footballer — not the Aussie kind, the real kind. Not a great scholar, but a hard worker.'

Benito talks but Lucy can't bear his words — they make it all real. He is talking about Carl when he was alive — because he is now dead. She tries not to listen. Looks at the slideshow. Thinks better of it and starts planning essay responses to the Lit paper, should she sit the exams.

A cousin stands and talks about Carl's youth. Sprinklers and dams and growing up together. The bucolic, idyllic days of childhood. More music, more images on the slideshow. Then Ben — his eulogy. Lucy hears nothing.

Finally, when Ben finishes, he asks the crowd, ‘Is there anyone here who would like to say something?' And he hasn't even finished when Lucy realises she is heading down the aisle towards him.

‘Lucy.' Ben smiles and steps back from the mike.

Lucy can't believe she is doing this. What her brain is saying her body is ignoring. She reaches the podium and looks at the faces and then speaks. Her voice is clear and even. She avoids eye contact with anyone.

‘I'd like to recite a poem,' she begins:

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.

To weep is to risk being called sentimental.

To reach out to another is to risk involvement.

To expose feelings is to risk showing your true self.

To place your ideas and your dreams before the crowd is to risk being called naive.

To love is to risk not being loved in return.

To live is to risk dying.

To hope is to risk despair.

And to try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken, because the greatest risk in life is to risk nothing.

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing.

He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, and feel, and change, and grow, and love, and live.

Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave, he's forfeited his freedom.

Only the person who risks is truly free.

She doesn't make eye contact with anyone and returns to the back of the room. She knows that poem off by heart; she'd once recited it to Carl and
his eyes had lit up, impressed by her.

‘That poem is about you,' he'd said, grabbing her around the waist. ‘You're a risk taker and a free spirit.'

But the truth was, it was really about him.

The tension is broken by Ben, who gets up again and delivers a funny story. Then another from Al. More pictures. Some music and then someone hits the button and the coffin descends. Benito says, ‘Please meet us in the foyer for coffee and refreshments.' And the Kapulettis leave the room. Lucy feels Mrs K watching her on the way out.

‘You did real good,' Lydia says, grabbing her hand.

‘You were so strong,' Georgia agrees. ‘Wake?' Lydia asks.

Lucy shakes her head. ‘I can't. I'm going home.'

She looks at Mum and Dad. Both have been crying and they nod in agreement. Tomorrow is the hearing.

Lucy watches the judge. The Kapulettis' lawyer has laid out the case, exactly as Paterson explained. Paterson refutes the points, drawing on previous case law to support his claims. The hearing takes an hour and a half. The judge calls for a recess.

In the coffee shop, Mrs K keeps looking her way. Her lawyer seems to be telling her not to.

Finally Paterson gets word that the judge is back. ‘It's time,' he says, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

On the way out, Mrs K happens to be behind her. ‘Lucinda,' she whispers.

Lucy turns. Mrs K's youthful beauty is shattered — she is haggard, destroyed.

‘We love you, Lucinda. But that is our grandchild,
no? Our last part of Carlo. Please, I beg you!'

Lucy reaches out to touch her but Paterson intercepts the move and hustles her away. All Lucy sees is their overwhelming sadness.

The courtroom is silent as the judge begins.

‘The first question is whether this plaintiff has a right at all. The foetus cannot, in Australian law, have a right of its own, at least until it is born and has a separate existence from its mother. That permeates the whole of the civil law of this country.'

Lucy feels her mother squeeze her hand.

‘For a long time there was great controversy over whether, after birth, a child could have a right of action in respect of prenatal injury. The Law Commission considered that, but it was universally accepted, and has since been legally accepted, that in order to have a right, the foetus must be born and be a child. From conception, the child may have succession rights by what has been called a “fictional construction”, but the child must subsequently be born alive.'

Lucy glances at her parents. Dad is nodding. Mum is squeezing.

Mr and Mrs K are devastated. Lucy looks away.

‘Prior to this case, the courts have only heard from husbands issuing injunctions against wives. I considered these. In these instances, the father's case must therefore depend upon a right which he has himself. I would say a word about the illegitimate father and I call him such as he is not authorised by law, at this stage. It seems to me that in this country, the illegitimate father can have no rights whatsoever except those given to him by statute.'

Lucy shakes her head. She is losing the thread — she doesn't understand — but her lawyer seems to and is nodding in agreement.

‘So these plaintiffs must, in my opinion, bring their case, if they can, squarely within the framework of the fact that they have a husband's rights. Which this case does not allow. The husband, if you will, is now deceased and so the case does not rest with him. The law is that the court cannot and would not seek to enforce or restrain, by injunction, matrimonial obligations, if they be obligations, such as sexual intercourse or contraception. No court would ever grant an injunction to stop sterilisation or vasectomy. Personal family relationships in
marriage cannot be enforced by the order of a court.

‘I ask the question, “If an injunction were ordered, what could be the remedy?” and I do not think I need say any more than that no judge could even consider sending a husband or wife to prison for breaking such an order. That, of itself, seems to me to cover the application here; a husband, or party acting for the husband as in this case, cannot by law stop his wife by injunction from having what is now accepted to be a lawful abortion within the terms of the
Abortion Act 1967
.'

At this point, the judge pauses for what seems to Lucy the longest time. And with each lengthening pause, she starts to feel nervous.

‘However …' he begins, and for the first time that innocent word, which she uses frequently to link paragraphs in Lit essays, takes on a menacing dimension. This
however
reeks of possibilities she hasn't wanted to entertain.

‘… this case offers up new facets of law never discussed before. And the plaintiff has referred to a Canadian case,
Yaakov vs State,
where the courts found in favour of the plaintiff. To summarise: in this case, the courts heard that the parents of the
deceased wished to utilise frozen sperm and had, in writing, Yaakov's wishes to become a parent — after his death. Unusual, indeed, but in its rights the State found reason to grant the bereaved parents the right to utilise the sperm — to create a grandchild and legacy to Yaakov. In the matter before us, the deceased has also made clear, via his doctor's written account, his wishes to be a father and create a legacy. I found, however …'

At this point, the judge pulls off his glasses and wipes his eyes. His use of
however
has changed in tone. Once resetting the glasses on the bridge of his nose, he continues.

‘… that it would be a folly to pursue this idea here. Yaakov's sperm had not fertilised an egg. It was not in the process of conception. And while the argument rages about when life begins — or personhood — the law finds a foetus has no legal rights. Under that law, I'm compelled to dismiss the plaintiffs' first claim. On the second, about inheritance, to grant that would be to override the mother's choices, which the law so far has indicated are the primary consideration. On those grounds, I dismiss that claim, as well. Which leaves us only
with an injunction against a woman to abort.'

Dad sighs loudly. Lucy glances at him. She is holding her breath.

Paterson winks at her —
in the bag.
She feels her mother's hand clutched in her own. Too tightly. She releases her grip.

‘I will look at the
Abortion Act 1967
very briefly. It provides by section 1: (1) … a person shall not be guilty of an offence under the law relating to abortion when a pregnancy is terminated by a registered medical practitioner if two registered medical practitioners are of the opinion, formed in good faith —
(a)
that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk … of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman … (2) In determining whether the continuance of a pregnancy would involve such risk of injury to health as is mentioned in paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of this section, accounts may be taken of the pregnant woman's actual or reasonably foreseeable environment.

‘Two doctors have given a certificate. It is not and cannot be suggested that the certificate was given in other than good faith and it seems to me that there is
the end of the matter in Australian law. The
Abortion Act 1967
gives no right to a father to be consulted in respect of a termination of a pregnancy. The husband, or any party operating for him, therefore, in my view, has no legal right enforceable in law or in equity to stop his wife having this abortion or to stop the doctors from carrying out the abortion. And so my findings are to dismiss the case in its entirety.'