Please Don't Leave Me Here (6 page)

‘And remember when the twins were little?' She smiles. ‘They used to kick around on their mat on the porch.' Finn rolled over for the first time, and Phoebe started crawling there.

He's still not listening as the tyres crunch to a stop on the gravel driveway beside the white fibro house. The last time he was here, Ryan painted green over the faded sky-blue window frames and doorframes. He missed a few patches.

The twins bounce out of the car. Brigitte slides out slowly. It takes a while to straighten up, for the stiffness to leave her body after sitting for three-and-a-half hours. She inhales a deep breath of eucalyptus-scented air as she takes a bag from the back of the car. A mother koala cuddles her baby in the gum tree next to the house.

Inside, the house smells of stale air, dust, fish, and mould. She opens all the windows and doors, Sam turns on the power at the main switch, and they start unpacking. There's a shoebox on the breakfast bar. Brigitte lifts off the lid. It's full of dusty shells. She picks one up and turns it over in her hand. Did the twins collect this? Or did she and Ryan when they were little? Or did somebody else?

‘What are you doing?' Sam stands at the screen door, loaded with bags and soft toys. ‘How about helping?'

She returns the shell, closes the lid, and walks across to open the door for him.

The kids pull out the boxes of toys and pencils in the sunroom, and then abandon them for the little bikes with training wheels in the shed.

Sam takes one of the adult bikes for a long ride around the island. Brigitte takes the twins for a short walk along the boardwalk, to the playground, and then for a ride on the ferry across to Paynesville and back.

That night, the smells of wood fire and mosquito coils fill the air. Brigitte and Sam sleep in her Nana and Papa's old bed in the middle bedroom. When Sam reaches out to touch her, she pretends to be asleep. The twins sleep together in the bottom bunk bed on the opposite side of the room — for a while anyway, before they climb in with their mum and dad.

Brigitte lies awake. The pillow feels hot, and hair tickles her face. She kicks Sam —
go into the twins' bed, give me some room
— but he doesn't move.

Pain curls its fingers around her lower back, spreads into her pelvis and down her legs, cramps her toes. She twists, and tries to shift the pressure to different nerves. Breathing away the pain — good air in through her nose, bad air out through her mouth, filling the pain zones with pure, healing white light — doesn't help.

Guilt competes with physical pain. It worms its way under her skin, stirs the juices in her stomach, and wraps darkness around her throat, making it hard to swallow. Something casts a moving shadow on the wall; it looks like the curtains, but there's no breeze to stir them. She starts at the guttural, unearthly noise — not quite grunting, not quite screeching — of koalas mating. Maybe she should just tell Sam, and get it over with.

***

On the second day the weather warms up, and they walk to their favourite swimming spot at the back of the island. Brigitte stares at her feet and concentrates on the crunchy, rhythmic sound her sneakers make on the dirt road.

Brigitte and Sam sit on a beach towel in the shade of the gnarled tea-tree, watching Finn and Phoebe roll in the sand and splash at the lake's edge. A big black swan leaves its bevy and waddles out of the water towards the twins. They scream, giggle, bump into each other, and fall over. Brigitte laughs, and Sam shoos away the swan. The sky reflects blue on the water, and sunlit-silver wavelets shimmer in the distance. Brigitte fears the water, hates to swim, never goes in.

‘Sleep better down here?' Sam says.

‘Yes,' she lies, and looks at a passing boat. ‘A bit.'

He scoops up a handful of sand and lets it sift through his fingers.

Sam takes the twins fishing at dusk. Brigitte stays at the house; she tries to watch TV, or read a book, but she can't concentrate, can't sit still. She walks through the rooms. Her grandparents and great grandparents look down at her from old portrait photographs on the walls.

‘What am I going to do, Papa?' she asks the black-and-white shot of a young, handsome Papa fishing on the lake.

He smiles at her from his old tin boat.
He never caught the bastard in the blue Camry; he won't catch you either.
She runs her hands through her hair and looks away — straight into the big, gilt-framed mirror above the couch. She averts her eyes quickly. When they were kids, Ryan used to tell her that if they looked into that mirror they would see ghosts. She tells herself to stop being silly. There's no such thing as ghosts. In the kitchen, the clock ticks loudly on the wall above the sink. She takes a bottle of white wine from the fridge and pours herself a glass.

Footsteps pound across the porch, and the screen door slams. Fishing didn't last long. Sam's just behind the twins; he wipes his feet on the doormat. The house comes alive again.

‘We catched a big crab, Mummy,' Finn says.

‘Yes, but it jumped off the line and back into the water, didn't it, Finny?' Sam picks up the twins' abandoned fishing rods from the floor and stands them in the rack at the corner of the kitchen.

‘Seaweed, too,' Phoebe says.

‘Yes, lots of seaweed.'

‘And did Daddy catch a fish?' Brigitte asks.

‘No,' the twins say in unison.

‘It was a bit noisy. Fish like quiet.' Sam gets a beer from the fridge and puts it in his I
HEART
THE R.I FERRY stubby holder. The twins giggle and run off to play with the toys in the sunroom.

‘Would you like a little glass of wine?' Sam takes the bottle from the fridge door. ‘God, Brig, you've drunk half the bottle!'

‘I'm on holiday.' She holds out her glass for a refill. ‘So what are we going to have for dinner now? I was planning to cook the fish you caught.'

Sam laughs.

‘Yuck, you smell fishy.' His whiskers scratch her face as he kisses her. ‘And you need to shave.' She pushes him away.

‘Fishermen don't shave.' He rubs the stubble on his chin.

‘Go have a shower.'

‘Coming with me?'

‘Maybe.' She doesn't meet his eyes.

‘Whack on a DVD for them, and come on.'

She doesn't go, pretending that the twins need her for something.

‘Somebody lost in this house,' Phoebe says, in between screaming about having her hair washed in the bath.

‘Pardon?' Brigitte combs the conditioner through Phoebe's hair.

‘Somebody else here. Lost.'

‘No. It's only us here.'

‘Didn't come with us.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘Somebody lost in this house. Forever. A kid. A baby.'

Brigitte shivers. ‘Don't be silly.'

‘Risotto's nearly ready,' Sam calls from the kitchen.

‘Phoebe, I love you, but sometimes you really creep me out.'

‘What that means, Mummy?'

‘Nothing.' Brigitte rinses the conditioner, and Phoebe starts screaming again.

Brigitte lies awake in bed again, with Aidan gnawing at her thoughts like a rat at electrical cords. A mosquito buzzes around her ears. Old dreams are trapped here; family secrets push down on her and mingle with her own dreams and secrets. Maybe there are ghosts.
Somebody lost in this house. Forever.
Sleep. Don't sleep — heart palpitations drag her up just as she falls into the dark dream-place. She sucks in her breath, but can't get enough air into her lungs.

She gets up and walks through the house, pulse racing. Tick, tick, tick: the clock above the sink in the kitchen. She drinks a glass of water and goes outside. A lot of stars twinkle in the sky. She lights a mosquito coil with shaking hands, and flops in the old black-leather couch on the porch.
Breathe. Breathe
. When her pulse finally relaxes, she closes her eyes.

It's cold in her dream, so she goes into the kitchen.

‘Told you it was a good race horse, knew it'd win the Melbourne Cup.' Nana is sitting with Kurt Cobain at the table.

‘I thought it was Dune — like the David Lynch film, with Sting.' Kurt holds a shell in his hand; he looks at it, and tosses it into a bowl on the table.

‘No, Kurt, it's pronounced Ju-ane. It's French.'

Nana holds a tiny baby swaddled in a yellow bunny rug. To hold that baby would be better than anything in the world. Kurt unties the white ribbon on a little blue box and, from the box, produces the red dog collar and a key attached to a glittery, silver letter-J key ring. ‘Put these somewhere safe. Don't lose them.' He hands them to Brigitte.

Nana holds out the baby, and the rug unravels. There's no baby inside — just a metal iron. Nana passes the iron and says to run. Brigitte holds the dog collar and the key, but the iron is too heavy and slippery. She looks down; it's dripping with blood, and she drops it. What happened to the baby?

‘Hurry. The tram's nearly here,' Kurt says. ‘Run faster this time.'

She wakes on the porch couch, head pounding. It's freezing, silver frost icing the grass; a few birds start to twitter. She goes inside. It's nearly four, according to the clock above the sink. She pulls on a pair of socks, and squashes into bed between Sam and the twins.

***

Ryan, Rosie, and Georgia come down on the third day. They unpack their things in the back bedroom. The house feels happy now: it needs lots of people.

Sam and Ryan take the kids across to Paynesville for ice-creams. Brigitte makes herbal tea, and puts out a plate of biscuits on the breakfast bar.

‘Wow, you've lost a lot of weight, Rosie.'

Rosie pushes the biscuits away. ‘Thanks. I'm taking good care of myself these days.'

The short haircut, cropped around her face, accentuates her huge brown eyes. Ryan was right: she does look like a stick insect. ‘It's important to be healthy as we get older.' Rosie's eyes flick down and up Brigitte's body. Assessing her?

‘Yes. Apparently all sorts of things start to change when you get to forty.' Brigitte takes a biscuit. ‘So I've heard.'

‘I wish Ryan would do something healthy. He's really packing on the weight.'

‘He walks a lot. He's OK.'
And quite a bit younger than you.

Rosie raises her eyebrows. There's an awkward silence.

‘How's Georgia going at kinder this year?'

‘Well, you know — Georgia's always going to be difficult. Ryan lets her get away with too much.' She waves a hand dismissively. ‘I seriously don't know how you can stand staying home looking after kids all day, Brigitte.'

‘I work, too.'

Rosie ignores her; writing is not a real job to Rosie. ‘In some ways, it's lucky Ryan's unemployed — so he can do it.'

‘He's not unemployed,' Brigitte says. ‘He's got some work on. And auditions.'

Rosie laughs — a fake laugh — and pretends to choke on her tea. She leaves her half-empty cup on the breakfast bar, and goes to her room. Brigitte has another biscuit, and loads the dishwasher.

Rosie comes out in her lycra gear and trainers, ready for a run around the island. ‘You should come, Brigitte.' She fills a water bottle at the sink.

‘No, thanks.'

‘Sorry, I forgot you can't …' she says, with a look that's not quite pity.

Rosie jogs off, and Brigitte takes a book out to read on the porch couch — the book Rosie gave her last Christmas:
Alias Grace
by Margaret Atwood. She can't concentrate, and keeps reading the same page. She thinks about opening the wine in the fridge.

Where are the boys and the kids?
Rosie gets back before they do. She showers, and stays in her room with the door shut.

Sam and Ryan come back with alcohol on their breath; the kids have ice-cream all over their faces and T-shirts. Ryan holds a slab of beer under his arm. Brigitte closes her book and follows them inside.

‘What's for dinner, Little Sis?' Ryan jokes, putting the slab on the breakfast bar and an arm around her shoulder.

‘Go away. You've been at the pub. You stink of beer. Both of you.'

‘Just kidding. Sam and I'll go back across and get fish and chips.' He hiccups. ‘Where's Rosie?'

‘In your room.'

He goes to her. Sam puts the beers in the fridge. ‘Want one?'

‘OK.'

They take their drinks outside. The kids are riding bikes around the yard. Sam kisses Brigitte against a pole on the porch, his hand up under her T-shirt. She turns her face, and looks around his shoulder.

‘What's wrong?'

‘Ryan,' she whispers. He's standing in the doorway, clearing his throat. Brigitte pushes Sam away and straightens her T-shirt.

‘Everything OK?' she says.