Please Don't Leave Me Here (12 page)

Yasmine is cheerful and polite as always. ‘It's OK. We knew something important must have come up.' She's taken out her nose ring; the piercing is infected.

Brigitte clicks Finn and Phoebe into their child restraints in the car, and finds lollypops for them in the glove box. ‘Sorry, guys.' She seatbelts herself in, and looks at them in the rear-view mirror, sucking away happily: they have her nose, her mouth, Sam's eyes.

‘When is Daddy coming back?' Phoebe asks.

15

It's 7.00pm. Bedtime. Here we go again. Brigitte lacks the energy for the night-time ritual and drama. She's begrudgingly grateful that Aidan is here to help.

From the bathroom, she calls the twins to come and get ready for bed. Finn comes immediately and stands on the step stool at the basin. She helps him put toothpaste on his Bob the Builder toothbrush. Brigitte calls Phoebe again.

Finn brushes and rinses and spits all by himself.

‘Good boy, Finny.' He lets her help wash his hands and face. She does up the top button of his Spider Man pyjamas, and he runs off. She can hear Phoebe arguing with Aidan in the lounge room.

Please just hurry up and go to bed.
Brigitte looks at herself in the mirror. She's lost weight. She should pluck her eyebrows while she's waiting, but she can't be bothered.

‘Not tired, Aidan!'

‘If you weren't tired you wouldn't be speaking in that voice.'

‘Not going to bed.'

Please, just for once, make it easy.
Brigitte grinds her teeth and leans against the wall.

‘Then you won't get a story or a cuddle.'

‘Don't care!' Bang. Something hits the wall.

‘Phoebe!'

The sound of naughty little footsteps patters through the kitchen.

‘What's going on out there, Phoebe?' Brigitte says.

‘Aidan angry.'

‘Really? What did you do to Aidan?'

‘Nothing.'

‘It didn't sound like nothing.'

Phoebe sticks out her bottom lip. ‘Not tired.'

‘OK. Let's just get you clean anyway.'

Phoebe protests and squirms while Brigitte brushes her teeth and rubs a face washer over her face.

Brigitte drags her by the arm to bed — past a hole in the plasterboard wall that's the same shape as her plastic toy tiger.

Aidan is sitting on Finn's bed, reading him a story. He pauses, looks at Brigitte over the top of the book, and then keeps reading. He's wearing the shirt with the missing button. She feels a flutter in her chest: a side-effect of Doctor Rhys's medication?

Phoebe chooses Dr. Seuss's
Green Eggs and Ham
. Again. Brigitte tucks her in and lies next to her. ‘That Sam-I-am! That Sam-I-am! I do not like that Sam-I-am.'

‘Sam is Daddy.'

‘Yes.' Brigitte turns the page.

‘Daddy is sleeping with Kitty under the ground now.'

Brigitte puts
Green Eggs and Ham
aside, and cuddles Phoebe. She smells of sandalwood and rose. She rests her face in the crook of her little neck, kisses her, and strokes her fairy-floss hair until she falls asleep. Finn and Aidan have fallen asleep, too. She kisses Finn's lips and turns off the light.

Aidan stumbles out a couple of hours later while she's watching TV and procrastinating about writing her article. His button is in the sewing box in the laundry; she should sew it back on for him.

‘Good night,' he says.

She nods. Her back is hurting, and there are shimmers of pain in her pelvis.

When the light goes off in the bungalow, she opens a bottle of wine and takes two painkillers.

16

Ida rests on the chair by the lift, her head lolling forward onto her chest. Nobody notices that she looks kind of bluish-grey, like over-boiled egg yolk. Brigitte tells Petula, who waits until all the residents have made their way into the dining room before calling an ambulance to take her away.

Papa's seated near the end of a long table, turning a paper napkin over in his hands. He smiles when he looks up and sees Brigitte squeezing past chairs to get to him. She kisses him and takes the chair in front of her place card. He's wearing his only suit — brown and mothballed.

The staff are wearing Santa hats, and the walls of the dining room are lined with tinsel. Crackers and paper tablecloths bordered with holly and ivy adorn the tables. A balding man plays Christmas songs on a keyboard in the corner: ‘White Christmas'. Two carers try to get Rose to take her medication, but she won't sit down. Joyce spits something into her napkin, and Roy complains that the paper hats in the crackers aren't as good as last year's. It's just like the Christmas party at kinder earlier in the week.

When the staff bring around jugs of fruit punch, Brigitte fills two plastic cups with it. ‘Merry Christmas, Papa.' They touch their cups together. She takes a big drink.

‘Kids at school?' Papa says.

‘Kinder.'

‘You right?'

She looks into her cup.

Papa pats her arm, ‘You'll be right.'

She tops up their drinks.

Petula and the resident podiatrist come over for chats. While the podiatrist is talking bunions with Papa, Petula bends down to Brigitte and rubs her shoulder. ‘We have people you can talk to here — counsellors, not just for the residents.'

‘Thank you. I'm OK.' She tries to smile.

‘Hard time of the year to be without a loved one. Especially with little ones. Just let us know if you need anything.'

Brigitte nods, and tickles the roof of her mouth with her tongue.

‘What'd she say to you?' Papa asks when Petula moves away.

‘Nothing. Just merry Christmas.'

‘None of her bloody business.'

Brigitte takes a big sip of punch.

She's had three cups by the time the staff start relaying plates of lunch to the tables. Ham, roast meat (presumably beef, or maybe pork), potatoes, cauliflower, mushy peas, and tomatoes from a tin, all drowning in a pool of anaemic gravy.

She picks at the food, eating less than Papa does. They both wave away the Christmas pudding and custard, but have more punch.

Her head wobbles as she rests it on her hand and listens to Papa talk about the war. She's had too much to drink. And the Valium wasn't a good idea either.
Stupid.
She has to pick up the twins from kinder in an hour. She refills her cup with water.

The punch wasn't that strong. She should be right to drive — doesn't have far to go. She fumbles with the keys and opens the car. There's a lot of traffic in Church Street. It takes a long time to get a clear run to make a U-turn.

Uniformed cops are stopping cars on Nicholson Street.
Shit.
Random breath-testing. She smiles at the uniform:
Please just let me go past
. But he doesn't — he waves her over. She breaks out in a sweat as she parks and turns off the ignition.

‘Have you drunk any alcohol today?' the uniform says.

‘Um, might have had a glass of punch. I thought it was non-alcoholic, but maybe it wasn't. At the old people's home. Their Christmas party.'

He tells her to blow into the tube on the device.

‘I'm Sam Campbell's wife. Do you think you could just let me go through?' She tries a slow blink, but it doesn't work.

‘Sorry, m'am. It doesn't matter whose wife you are, you still have to take the breath test.'

Prick
. He has no idea what he's doing. She blows.

He looks at the reading; she inhales deeply, holds it, feels dizzy.

‘Unfortunately, your blood-alcohol content reading is over the legal limit, m'am. I'm going to have to ask you to step out of your vehicle and accompany one of the officers to the station for a second breath-test.'

Fuck.
She exhales, rubs her forehead, and does as she's told.

‘Can I make a phone call? I need to organise somebody to pick up my kids.'

He nods. He's young, too cocky.

She calls Ryan.

‘Hey, Brigi. What's up?'

‘Nothing. Can you pick up the twins from kinder?'

‘What's wrong?'

‘Just do it, will you?'

‘Tell me what's happened.'

‘Nothing.'

‘What?'

‘I've been pulled over for drink-driving, all right?'

‘What!'

She kicks the dirt on the side of the road.

‘Did you tell them who you are?'

‘They don't care.'

‘Call Aidan then.'

‘I don't want to call him.'

‘Just call him.'

‘No.' She hangs up.

***

‘Brigitte. What the fuck?' Aidan strides into the colourless room where she's being detained at Richmond police station. ‘I don't have time for this.'

She looks up. He seems taller than she remembers. And more attractive. She looks away. Ryan better not have called him. Maybe he just heard — somehow. Fucking cops always know everything. Almost everything.

‘Where're the twins?'

‘Ryan's getting them.'

‘Pretty fucking irresponsible.'

She feels like a naughty teenager.

‘Come on.'

‘What?'

‘Take you home.'

‘Aren't you busy working?'

‘Yes.'

She's been sitting too long; her back is aching, pain radiating into her legs. It takes two tries to get out of the chair. He reaches for her arm, and it is pity, not lust, she thinks she sees in his eyes. She pushes him away.

‘You should go back to the doctor.'

Doctors have never helped anything before. They let Dan die, couldn't save Sam, and made her live when maybe she wasn't meant to. Or was that supposed to be God? Doctors and God — both fucking useless.

On the way out through the automatic doors, Aidan says, ‘Sam said you just need another back operation and you'll be right. But you're too stubborn to go back.'

‘Is that right? That what you two used to sit around talking about, instead of catching criminals?'

He drives her home in a marked car. It stinks of takeaway food and sweat. She doesn't believe that it was the only vehicle available.

‘Will I lose my licence?'

‘No.'

‘What about my car?'

‘Don't worry. I'll bring it home tonight.'

She chews her fingernails.

‘Must've been good punch with the oldies.'

She doesn't speak, and has a quick sideways look at him — he's trying not to laugh.

Of course, Kerry has to be out in her front yard when they pull up across the road. Brigitte rushes inside, past Ryan in the hallway. The twins run out to see, and she hears Aidan turn on the siren for them.

***

It's 7.55pm on the microwave clock. The twins are asleep, but Aidan's not home yet. Sober and drug-free for the first time since Sam's funeral, Brigitte stares out the kitchen window at next door's brown brick wall, wondering — not worrying — where he is. Probably out somewhere with his wife.

Some of the tension leaves her shoulders when she hears the click of the padlock and the squeak of the side gate. But she jumps when he taps on the window. She slides it open.

‘Can I come in?'

She tilts her head towards the kitchen door and unlocks it. He's holding a pizza in a cardboard takeaway box, and has a bottle of red wine under his arm. ‘Car's out the front.' He throws her the keys. ‘Air-con wasn't working, so I had it fixed.' She follows him to the lounge room, where he places the pizza and wine on the coffee table. ‘Didn't feel like eating alone tonight. Hope you don't mind.'

She's about to say she does mind, stops herself, and says, ‘Thank you. For everything today.' The pizza smells good; she feels hungry for the first time in a while.

She gets some glasses and plates from the kitchen, comes back, and sits next to him on the floor, their backs against the couch — too close. She moves away a bit.

They've finished the pizza, and she's on her second glass of wine when she says, ‘Was I a suspect?' A guilty person wouldn't ask that.

He swills the wine around in his glass. ‘A person of interest at the time.'

‘Do you think Sam thought I did it?' Of course Sam thought she did it.

‘Who knows what Sam was thinking?' He drinks some wine. ‘I bet I know what he was thinking
with.
'

She narrows her eyes.