Peeling the Onion (15 page)

I remember the poem I wrote for Martin. I know now why it was a lie: it was a real person's poem—someone who could lift off the mask and find themselves still there, who could reach deep down inside and touch something vital, something clean and strong. But for me, behind the mask, under the shell—there's nothing. Nothing but the mute emptiness of my mind—the swirling, engulfing chaos of a black hole.

I write it again.

I am

peeling like an onion—

decaying slimy layers,

hiding blackened mush inside.

I am

opening like a babushka—the

painted dolls are broken; there's

no baby left inside.

I am

unwrapping like a present—the

paper's torn and crumpled; the

gift's stolen from inside.

Though the 'I am' is still a lie—because now that the superficial Annas have been ripped away there's nothing at the centre except a swirling void, the vortex of fear. The real Anna doesn't exist.

The letters on Dad's desk weren't just about what's wrong with me. They were about what we're supposed to do about it. Suing. Lawyers. Court. Judge and juries. Me on trial.

'It won't be for a couple more years,' Dad says—
as if that makes a difference . . . as if I could hang around for two more years with this as the prize!
—and suddenly anger jolts me out of the greyness.

'I don't want to make money out of this! It's putting a price on my body—it's obscene—it's prostitution! I don't know how you can do this to me!'

'I'm not doing anything to you!'
Dad's shouting too; first time he's been angry at me since the accident.
'You've got serious problems, you seem to be in constant, terrible pain; the doctors are suggesting that you'll only ever be able to work part-time if at all—you're going to need some extra money to make up for that!'

'I just don't see why I should have go to court . . . as if I were the criminal!'

'It wouldn't be like that. But Anna, I'm your father; I'm an accountant—this is the one thing I can do for you. Let me do it.'

The suffocating blackness again; fighting the terror by screaming myself awake. What if I didn't?
What if I let the choking win?

Luke wants to walk by the river after English; I tell him my foot's too sore. I need more than a muddy path, more than a giant log and damp trees to make me feel alive again. His eyes are dark and his face worried; for once he's got nothing to say.

I'm dragging my friends down with me. They'd be better off I were gone.

My neck is cramping and tearing, the pain on the back of my head is screaming, and I might too if it doesn't stop. I'll have to take a painkiller.

So what am I waiting for? There's nothing magic about my birthday; I'm not going to have a miracle in the next ten days. I'm not going to have a miracle ever. This is it, this is as good as it gets: pain and failure, failure and pain. It's not living, I'm not alive, I'm nothing but a blob of pain and I can't keep going this way.

They're gone—all of them, the pack in my drawer and the ones in the medicine cupboard. Find Mum.

'One or two?' Mum asks, doling them out as if I were a kid.
I don't believe it
—
she's hidden my tablets!

'They're powerful drugs,' she says. 'We shouldn't keep them where Matt could get them.'

Except that the bathroom cupboard has a childproof lock—Matt can't open it. And he knows that if he went through my underwear he'd need more than painkillers to help him.

'You took them out of my drawer! What happened to privacy—or did I lose that along with everything else?'

Mum flares as fast as me; suddenly we're both screaming. 'I'm worried about my child's life and you complain about
privacy?

Then just as suddenly she's crying. So am I. Crying with messy tears and drippy nose and lots of noise. Because I know which child she means. The one that can open childproof locks. The one who might have been looking for a way out.

And I know I can't do it. I can't hurt them that badly.

'It's okay, Mum, I promise. I won't do anything. Promise.'

It's not that easy. It was always there, a talisman to touch when life was unbearable, that secret plan—the escape route. Now even that's gone. With no way out the pain is infinite, misery can go on without end. One more bit of control lost. But I promised. Some promises you can't break.

C
HAPTER
12

P
art of the promise is agreeing to see a counsellor. Counsellor doesn't sound as bad as psychologist. Not as crazy.

Her office is in a big old house, behind Mario's Hair and a beautician
(we fix your head, inside and out).
I pretend I'm here for my usual trim of split ends and fringe, but I've never felt this sick waiting for Mario. It's almost a relief when a woman appears and asks me to follow her down the hall.

She's about thirty, with a lively face that stills to concentrate as if what you're saying is the most important thing she's ever heard. Her name's Laura and she says that it's my time, to talk about whatever I like, and that nothing I say will leave the room.
What if I said I wanted to kill myself? Would she just keep quiet and let me?

I don't know what I'm supposed to say.

So she asks me about the accident; how it happened, what it was like being in hospital. I can tell her all that; I describe the pain and the bitch battles with the nurses and the old lady dying. I tell her that one of my best friends couldn't deal with it, and how she dumped me.

'That's a pretty terrible story,' Laura says. 'Some people might even want to cry about it.'

Maybe they would. Some people aren't me.

I go on with my story—part of the promise was that I'd co-operate, not just turn up—the doctors' visits; the tests. I tell her that I've been told I can't do just about everything in the world that's important to me.

But I don't tell her how I feel about it. I tell it as if it's somebody else's story—just the facts—no emotion. I can't take the risk. Can't tell her how scared, how
terrified
I am that if somebody gets right into my head, pokes around and tears it apart, it might never come back together again.

She's quiet for several minutes when I finish.

'You didn't want to come here today, did you?' she says at last.

Not much point in lying.

'You've been through hell, and it's not over yet. You've had extraordinary adjustments to make, not just in your life now, but in how you see the future—I suspect you can't picture it at all at the moment . . . am I right?'

If I could see a future I wouldn't be here!

'You'd be crazy if you weren't sad about all this.'

I'll risk one question: 'So if I'm not crazy—why do I sometimes say that I died in the accident?'

'What do you think?'

'Because the old me is dead?'

'The old you is dead,' she repeats. 'That's a very powerful statement, and might well be the reason you feel that you died. But your problem now—your task—is to find the new you, and we've got three options on how you'd like to work at that: we can set up regular appointments for you to come and see me; if you don't think you can work with me, I can refer you to someone else; or I can simply give you the names of a few books and a couple of suggestions and leave it at that. If you don't feel comfortable about starting therapy there's no point forcing it on you—it has to be your decision.'

If I talked to any psychologist it'd be her . . . . but, 'It seems so weird—coming in to spill your guts once a week!'

She laughs. 'When you put it like that . . . What's weirder is that when you're ready, it works. So any time you feel really desperate, or you'd just like to talk, I'll be here. Please call me.'

She means it. It's me I'm not so sure of.

'One more thing,' she adds, as I'm getting ready to go. 'There are two ways of crossing a chasm: you can walk a tightrope without looking down—you tried that, and it didn't work. It never really does. The other way is to work your way down and up the other side—but you've got to get to the bottom first.'

Is there anywhere further down to go?

'But you're going to make it,' she adds. 'It mightn't be exactly the way you planned, but you'll make it.'

'An un-birthday present,' Luke announces, and pulls a walking stick from behind his back.

I'm nearly over my fantasy of my stick being neon—but this one really is. It's been painted white and then completely covered with red and black designs that look like Chinese characters.

'They are'—and he starts pointing them out—'yin-yang, Tai Chi, peace, strength, love. They're the only ones I know—I had to repeat them a few times.'

'Does it glow in the dark too?'

'Of course. But the siren's optional.'

'And you painted it for me?'

'I just thought—hey, if you're going to use something all the time it should express your personality. If you've got it, flaunt it.'

'I don't think anyone ever said that about walking sticks!' But I look at it again, each character so finely drawn, the total geometric effect of the red/black alternation. I stroke it gently, turning it over and over in my hands—it must have taken hours. 'It's fantastic—thanks.' The memory of the last time I thanked him hangs in the air between us; I look away, forcing myself to stay in my chair, and tell him Laura's theory about the chasm. 'I can't believe I have to feel even worse before I can get better!'—
trying to make it sound like a joke; hearing the panic in my voice
—
she's got to be wrong, because it's impossible to feel worse than I do now.

'Maybe she just meant that you have to let yourself open up and be honest about how you're really feeling,' says Luke, and his face is so sad and tender that something twists inside me as if I'd kissed him again after all.

The rest of the family have all gone to see Laura now, one after the other. 'Nothing to be ashamed of,' Dad says, 'something like this has to affect all of us.'

Bronny comes home from school hyper with news; I haven't seen her this excited since Dad gave her the stethoscope. Vinita's cousin Rajiv has come to stay; Vinita has to move in with her little sister Charleeni, so that Rajiv can have her bedroom, but Vinita doesn't mind because he's so cool.

'He's from Bondi! That's a really big city and Vinita said he couldn't sleep at first because it was so quiet here.'

'Bombay?' Dad suggests, but it's Bronwyn's story—she gives him a scathing look and goes on with a list of the presents he's brought from the exotic bazaars of Bondi: a real sari for Vinita—and her mum's going to teach her how to wear it, and she might let Bronwyn have a go, but not to bring it home.

Slightly surprised to discover that our house has grown a second storey, I climb a flight of wooden stairs. At the top is a room with a half-open door. Sun is streaming in the window, the wallpaper is a riot of extravagant trees and birds; I understand that it's going to be my new room and I want to go in.

Mrs Hervey is on her hands and knees, scrubbing the floor in front of the open door with an old-fashioned scrubbing brush, lots of water and suds. 'Soon as it's all cleaned out,' she says cheerily, 'you can go inside.'
My hair is too long, too much trouble,
too much the old me
—and it's coming off today. Mario wants to know how I want it; I tell him to do what he likes. He goes on asking till I glance around the room and choose a poster of a soulful-looking girl with dark hair cut in straggly layers. 'Maybe not quite so wispy,' he says, gazing critically at my head in the mirror. 'Your face is too strong.'

My
face is a liar.

'You've got beautiful hair,' he adds, disappointed that I don't care more. 'You could probably sell it to a wig-maker if you wanted.'

'No!'
No more bits of me are for sale!

He gathers up a huge swathe of it in one hand, brandishing an old-fashioned cut-throat razor in the other.
One slip and I won't have to worry about my promise.
'Ready?' and he slashes—three strokes and a lifetime of hair is gone.

Trimming and shaping takes longer, freeing my ears, shaving up the back of my neck. The hair that's left is a sleeker, darker blonde; the girl that looks back from the mirror looks older—more mature. I like it. In spite of the scars under her eye and mouth, I almost like her. I almost feel good as I pay at reception and start out to meet Mum.

And freeze, face to face with a slight, pale, nervous-looking guy in his early twenties. My stomach cramps as if I've been kicked, sweat suddenly pours down my face and every bit of my body is screaming at me to get away.

'Come on through, Trevor,' Laura calls from down the hall—and as the blind panic pushes me out into the fresh air, I understand.

Mum, reading in the car, leans to push the door open for me, her comment on my hair broken off mid-word as she sees my face. 'You look like you've seen a ghost!'

'Trevor Jones.'

'Oh, Anna.' Her voice breaks as she drops her book to hug me. 'My poor baby. Let's get you home.'

I'm shaking; I think I might be sick. I don't just want to go home, I want to go to bed with a hot water bottle and a cuddle.

'How did you recognise him?' she asks suddenly. 'You didn't regain consciousness till you were in the ambulance.'

Maybe fear has its own memory, stronger than thought. Maybe his face is carved into some hidden pain part of my mind.

'You must have seen him in the car, before it hit,' she suggests, 'and so you remember that even though you've lost the actual impact.'

It's the best explanation either of us can think of.

But I still need to go to bed. Thank God the kids are at school and that it was Mum who took me for my haircut after English; I don't want to be alone and I don't want to be brave.

She sits down on the bed beside me, holding my hand. 'It's a small town—it was bound to happen sooner or later.'

'I know, I've been dreading it—and I know it's best to get it over with,' but I'm crying, crying like a baby, and as I roll onto my front to muffle the tears in my pillow, Mum rubs my back in the same way.