Please Don't Leave Me Here (10 page)

Two carers are clearing out a room upstairs. One fills a cardboard box with personal belongings. The other removes the name card from the door: John Lilly. The cigarette-smoking man's name was John Lilly.

Papa's sitting in his chair, staring out the window at the Pelaco sign, with Tiger on his lap and a Bing Crosby cassette playing.

‘Oh, Brigi,' he says when he looks up and sees her in the doorway. She rushes in, drops her bag on the floor, and slumps in the vinyl chair opposite him. Papa pushes Tiger off and reaches for her hands. She lowers her head — can't hold it up any longer. Tears flow down her face, her arms, and onto Papa's papery hands. She squeezes his hands tighter, slides off the chair, and kneels on the floor. She rests her head in his lap, ignoring the yeast-and-brine smell. He strokes her hair the way he strokes the cat. They sit like this for a long time, maybe an hour.

When she looks up, sunlight catches the blue-and-green swirls trapped inside the glass paperweight. She stares until her eyes lose focus, and her vision distorts the swirls — twists and slithers them like a snake. It's the serpent tattoo from her dreams. She blinks hard and looks away.

Papa has fallen asleep.

Brigitte can't breathe; the stale air, the body, and the hospital-like smells smother her. If she doesn't get out she's going to suffocate.

It's worse in the lift. She grasps the rail, and presses her cheek against the cold metal.

On the street, she gulps air and walks down the hill without noticing where she's going. The pub, Bridge Road, the hairdresser, McDonalds, the police station all blur past.

She stops at the playground and watches a man chase two giggling children around the black-and-yellow play equipment. It's not fair that Finn and Phoebe have to grow up without a father. She scuffs the tan bark with the toe of her shoe. An old Asian man in a blue tracksuit does chin-ups on the monkey bars; dogs run without leads on the oval, which is enclosed by a black mesh fence. Brigitte looks towards St Ignatius's church: the building is obscured, but the spire is visible above the roof of the police station.
Not fair, Sam. Not fucking fair.

She pulls off her jacket, ties it around her waist, and marches around the oval. The burnt-biscuit smell of factory smoke catches at the back of her throat as she breathes too quickly in through her nose and out through her mouth. Halfway around, the four goal posts blur into eight, and then back to four. She stops and leans against the fence until the dizziness subsides. When she straightens up, something in her spine crunches, slips, and doesn't go back into place. She sees spots, squeezes her eyes closed, and grips the fence. An old memory surfaces to block out the pain: her childhood safe place, the sleeper compartment of Dan's semitrailer. She remembers the warmth, the rocking of the motor; the smell of Kitten car polish; and the sound of Johnny Cash on the eight-track tape player singing about love lost and loneliness.

After they started primary school, Brigitte and Ryan didn't go away with Dan much anymore; only occasionally in the holidays. The flash of headlights across the curtains, and then the hiss of the Kenworth's air brakes would disturb the sleeping suburb and signal Dan's return home after a week or so on the road. He'd be up the next morning, with dark bags — more like suitcases — under his eyes, whistling while he made pancakes for them. One time he added a little red food dye to the mixture. The pink pancakes became a fabled childhood memory: so special, so exotic.

Joan didn't love Dan. Brigitte doesn't begrudge her that; everybody has their reasons, their circumstances. Who knows what Joan's reasons or circumstances were, or what Joan imagined them to be. Depression-related or just melodrama? Joan cried about everything, but she didn't cry when Dan died.

Brigitte has no tears left. She opens her eyes. A weak guttural moan escapes from her mouth. Maybe the number of tears is not indicative of the amount of love. But she did love Sam. Not at the start. And maybe not enough at the end. But somewhere in between, she loved him — especially after the twins were born. She must have; she just can't remember the feeling right now. He inherited his bad temper from his father, but he never hurt her. Not really. And he was never rough with the kids, never smacked them. It was a pity that work was more important than his family.

Dan's friends were always around when Dan was away. ‘Uncle Len', the mechanic, serviced the car. ‘Uncle Keith', the local driver, painted the house and did odd jobs. Some uncle always responded quickly to her call when Joan got scared at night on her own with the kids.

Brigitte leans over the fence to vomit, but her stomach is empty — she forgot to put food in there today. She dry-retches and spits on the grass.

Joan wrote a eulogy for Dan's funeral. She practised it over and over in front of the mirror, as though it was a Logie acceptance speech. But on the day she got so drunk she couldn't do it. Uncle Keith had to hold her up on the way out of the chapel. One of her black stiletto heels snapped when she tripped and twisted her ankle.

Brigitte limps around the rest of the oval circumference. Pigeons bob their iridescent heads, picking at something in the grass. A fire truck screams past. She braces for the searing nerve pain as she lowers herself onto a park bench.

She's struggling with her deep breathing, trying to flood the pain zones with pure, white healing light, when two wasted teenagers sit down next to her. They scratch at sores on their arms, and discuss some doctor in Lennox Street.

***

Brigitte waits on the red couch under the ‘complications of smoking' poster, chewing her little fingernail. Classical music is playing. A chart of melanomas hangs above a plastic palm tree; she has a mole on her back that looks a bit like one of them. She tenses and un-tenses the muscles in her legs, and keeps chewing her little fingertip until she tastes blood. She's been waiting for 15 minutes. She shouldn't be here, wasting the doctor's time. She's not sick. If he doesn't call her within one minute, she's leaving. Sixty cat and dog, fifty-nine cat and dog, fifty-eight cat and dog …

She starts when she hears her name, and follows the doctor into his consulting room. A painting of a waterfall hangs on the wall:
so relaxing
.

‘I'm Doctor Rhys Michaels.' He shakes her cold, sweaty hand. Dodgy Doctor Rhys, the teenagers at the park called him.
Getcha whatever you want. Doesn't ask questions.
‘I don't think I've met you before.'

‘No, I usually see Doctor Walpole in Clifton Hill. But I couldn't get an appointment today.' It's a lie.

‘What can I help you with, Brigitte?' He sits down, and gestures for her to take the patient's chair next to his desk.

‘Do you mind if I stand?'

‘Back pain?'

‘A bit. And some trouble sleeping. My husband …' The knot in her throat is suddenly too big for her voice to get around. She clears her throat.
Come on, say it
. ‘Died.'

‘I'm sorry to hear that.' His voice is modulated, comforting, practised. He reaches out and pats her hand. His skin feels smooth, cool — manicured and exfoliated.

She looks at the shelves of faded medical textbooks, disposable gloves, and tubs of specimen jars.

‘Do you have any children?'

‘Twins — a boy and a girl.' On the bottom shelf, stacks of medication sample packets are lined up next to snow globes, prescription pads, drink bottles with medical logos, and a Nike shoebox.

She looks up as he touches the blood-pressure machine on his desk and tries to straighten her back as though she is a person who has nothing wrong with her, a person who doesn't need her blood pressure checked.

‘How old?' he asks.

‘Four.'

‘A lovely age. Do you have enough support?' Sincere concern, eye contact, a furrowing of his brow — all practised.

She nods, and struggles to take a shallow breath.

Dodgy Doctor Rhys types and prints a prescription for Stilnox. Doctor Walpole would never prescribe sleeping tablets for her. He'd recommend chamomile tea and relaxation exercises, or something.
Breathe pure, white light into the pain zones, Brigitte.
The last time she saw him he suggested that her memory loss was caused by repression rather than head trauma, and recommended hypnotherapy. He's full of shit.

‘I know it's hard,' Dodgy Doctor Rhys says, ‘but you need to try to relax. Be kind to yourself, and organise some time out from the kids.'

‘I feel like I can't breathe.'

‘That's just anxiety. I'm going to give you a prescription for some Valium as well — just to help you get through this time.'

Doctor Walpole would bang on about the time she couldn't stop taking the Valium her previous doctor had prescribed as a muscle relaxant … her addictive personality type … and the hallucinations.

‘Anxiety is a normal reaction to grief.'

Yes, having your husband stabbed to death because he got in between two junkies having a domestic dispute will do that to you. Especially if it was your fault, because he was distracted by having found out you were screwing his workmate.
Uncle Aidan.
Sam must have known. And now he can't protect you anymore, and his workmate is going to send you to jail. Who wouldn't feel anxious?

He types something in her file. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with today?'

She looks at the Di-Gesic logo on his pen, and thinks of the almost-happy, hazy days of wine and painkillers after her second useless back operation. Would it be pushing it to ask for something for the pain as well? She decides against it, and shakes her head, remembering how hard the medication withdrawal was. And the hallucinations.

‘Take care then.' He stands.

She changes her mind. ‘Actually, I'm waiting to have an operation on my back.' The lies come easily. ‘The pain's been really bad lately. Nurofen doesn't help much. Do you think I could get something stronger for the pain?'

He frowns, types, and reads something on the screen. Uh-oh, has he found a link to her medical records?

‘You don't have a history of alcoholism or substance abuse?'

She shakes her head.

‘No mental illness in the family?'

‘No.'

He types another prescription, this time for Di-Gesic. He tells her to take two tablets every four hours for pain, and to follow the directions carefully. And he stresses the importance of not mixing it with alcohol.

‘Of course not.' She makes a serious face, furrows her brow a bit, mimicking his body language — practised.

‘Would you like another appointment to talk to somebody? A counsellor?' More sincere eye-contact.

She smiles politely, but shakes her head.

‘All right, but please come back if you need to. And good luck with the back operation.'

She thanks him and takes the prescriptions. Just having them in her hands makes her feel stronger as she heads home to write a eulogy.

13

Sam's funeral is big, of course. Too big. A sea of dark blue; solemn glances, respectful nods, sweaty armpits, too much supermarket deodorant, TV cameras. Heat radiates from the footpath out the front. It would have been a nice day for the beach or the zoo. Brigitte hasn't attended many funerals, but they've all been on cold, bleak days — appropriate weather. Sam was an atheist, but Maggie and Doug Campbell have insisted on a religious service. They forbade the police band from playing anything by the Foo Fighters, but reluctantly agreed to ‘Into my Arms' by the organist at the church.

Brigitte looks towards the domed wooden ceiling, and wishes she could collapse from the heat, be taken away in an ambulance so it would all be over. Maybe she should have started on Doctor Rhys's meds to help her through this. Or at least had a drink. No, she's not like her mother. She stands, sober, at the altar when it's her turn, and pays tribute to ‘Detective Senior Sergeant Sam Campbell, my kind, generous husband who was the best father there could be for Finn and Phoebe.'

A few coughs, sniffles, and scuffs of mourners' shoes.

‘He loved his job and gave it everything he could offer, and I believe this is why he was so successful in his chosen profession.' She glances at the coffin draped with the Australian flag, and at Sam's bravery medals — useless now — displayed on a small table, bathed in golden, stained-glass light.

‘He was courageous,' she says, ‘deeply respected by the community, a good bloke who devoted his life to — as our son Finn would say — keeping the good people safe.' She looks out at Finn, who's sitting on Ryan's lap in the front pew; she struggles to smile, takes a breath, and clears her throat. ‘He died protecting the community, and this shows the dangers our brave police officers confront every day. Sam's death is a reminder of how precious and fragile life is.' Her eyes fall on Aidan, and she averts them quickly. ‘Sam, we love you; you will always be in our hearts.'

After the service, the police band plays, and officers form a guard of honour along the street. A police helicopter does a fly-over as the mourners walk to the cars.