The Good Daughter (24 page)

‘He slipped,’ Nigel says, his face pale. ‘He slipped and fell.’

38

Not many people die in Kiona, and Aden’s no exception. He gets stitches, lots of stitches. His back is a patchwork quilt. He’s weak for a day or two because of the amount of blood he lost. Rebecca sits by his bedside at the hospital. He rubs his eyes like a child and kicks the blankets off his feet. He has to lie on his stomach. He hangs his head over the bed edge and stares down at the floor.

Rebecca relays the story to his visitors. Aden won’t say any more than
I fell over
, when asked. Rebecca learns how to give a good account of things. She sticks to the bits of the story that people enjoy the most – they nod when she says the ambulance guys were amazing, and how they saved his life (
she
saved his life, but it’s one of those things people glaze over at, and it does sound a bit
me, me, me
when she says it). She quickly discovers how a listener’s attention focuses at any mention of paramedics, nurses, doctors, surgeons. It prompts them into an ambulance and hospital story of their own. It wasn’t like this when her mother was dying. These visitors light up at details of the wound – where the main piece of glass went in, how deep it went, how many stitches were needed, what organs it missed, by what fraction it missed. Heart, lungs, arteries: words that get these round-faced relatives and mild-mannered family friends animated, as though they were, by night, undercover surgeons. They like it if she uses her own body as a reference for where the glass impaled him:
The big one was here
, she says, reaching back, twisting her arm up behind her,
And the smaller ones here, and here … The big one wasn’t in tight, that’s why he lost so much blood
…

After the initial storytelling, when they’re sitting around in chairs, and the visit begins to drag because Aden’s still not making any effort, they like to hear about how close to death he was – although they would prefer it if he told them this himself.

‘Did you have an out-of-body experience?’ his mother’s cousin asks.

‘I did not.’

He’s popular with his relatives, so they don’t mind if he’s rude – it adds to his appeal. Family members come out of the woodwork to see him. Most are from the coast. It’s an easy drive and an entertaining afternoon for them. They arrive in groups and make Rebecca cups of tea and invite her to future family gatherings. What Rebecca stops telling is the reason for the accident, why there was broken glass, and why Aden was not watching where he was going – the night takes too much explaining, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Who had the rifle? Why were the police there?
Who shot the dogs? It’s not the sort of thing you want to go over and over.

She also stops talking about the colour of Aden’s blood, the viscous nature of it, and the way Aden vibrated, the way time slowed, the sound the glass made when it moved inside him, like a butter knife twisting in raw meat, and the way her screaming rings spooky and empty in her ears when she’s alone and thinks about it – the screaming is more a reminder of how full-on the moment was than anything else. As an audience, the visitors don’t respond well if she mentions the guttural sound Aden made when the glass went in, the way he got as far up as all fours, then stopped, and lowered himself back to the ground. There’s not much drama to be had in the fact he suggested, very calmly, she call an ambulance before he passed out – but to be there … hearing him say it, seeing the tranquillity in him, as though he was resigned already to what had happened. It was a frightening confirmation of time running down, fast. It was as though he turned an hourglass and sat it there beside him – a reminder for everyone else; he knew full well he didn’t have long.

Then – once he was unconscious – the liquid nature of everything. There suddenly seemed to be no corners to anything, nothing had edges, nothing jarred – if Zach had come in holding a pair of cymbals and brought them clashing together by her ear … Rebecca would not have flinched, or thought it odd. As it was, she didn’t react when Zach touched her arm. He cupped her elbow. She can’t say why; some things she can’t remember clearly. A frightening and blood-soaked event in which nothing was harsh or unexpected. All the oddities drag her back there, but other people can’t relate. Not even Aden – he remembers it differently to her: ‘I fell over.’

She lies with her head on the pillow next to his. The curtain is pulled around them.

‘Are you being tough about it?’

‘No.’

‘Were you frightened?’

‘When?’

‘When it happened.’

‘I didn’t feel anything. It didn’t hurt.’

‘That doesn’t mean it didn’t frighten you.’

She reads aloud from
The Shining
. Horror novels lose their edge in hospital, her mother told her. Aden smiles during the scary bits, as though in recognition. He plays with the laces on her shoes.

Two years on and she is back here – walking these hospital wards, inhaling these smells, reading about Jack’s murderous rampage through the Overlook Hotel. Aden is as hopeless a patient as her mother ever was, but he’s alive. She leans across and kisses the top of his head just for that.

Nigel ambles in.

‘I don’t want any visitors,’ Aden says.

‘Jesus Christ, mate … a little bit of love wouldn’t go astray.’ Nigel sits on the end of the bed.

‘Make him go away.’

Rebecca closes the book and sits it down by her bag.

‘I’m the bearer of good news,’ Nigel says. ‘You should welcome me with open arms.’ He slaps Aden on the back on the thigh.

‘That hurts!’

‘I’d love to swap places with you. I’ve been running around like a blue-arsed fly.’ Nigel leans forward and slides open the drawer of the hospital bedside table. ‘Got any leftover Easter eggs? Didn’t anyone buy you a chocolate bunny? No wonder you’re miserable. Has your mum been in to see you? Shit, she’s dark, isn’t she?’ He laughs. ‘I’m banned from the restaurant. I think she thought
I
tried to kill you. I’m gunna turn up one night for dinner and see what she does.’

‘You’re giving me a headache.’

Nigel says, ‘I’ve come from meeting with the West Beach boys.’

Aden looks over his shoulder. He relaxes back into his position.

Nigel smiles at Rebecca. He winks.

‘They wanted to come in and see you, but …’ Nigel gets to his feet and walks over to the window. He looks out, down towards the car park. ‘I knew you’d be behaving like a four-year-old, and they wouldn’t have felt comfortable hanging out in the children’s ward.’

‘Where is it?’ Aden asks.

‘The usual spot.’

‘As much as what we thought?’

‘Yep.’

‘Good.’

Nigel stays looking out the window. ‘And guess who’s rumoured to have resurfaced?’

‘I heard the rumour.’

Nigel glances back. ‘I think I’m gunna need my own visual confirmation.’ He turns around to face them. He looks at Rebecca. His eyes have a warm, contented glow. He picks up the box of tissues from the windowsill and tosses it into the air, catches it, and puts it back.

A nurse walks in and takes the chart from the bottom of Aden’s bed. She smiles. ‘How is everybody today?’

‘Every body is good,’ Nigel says. ‘How is your body?’

The nurse signs off on the chart. She looks across at Nigel as she leaves.

Aden says, ‘I’d laugh if it didn’t hurt so much.’

Nigel uses his foot to propel himself away from the wall. He lopes towards the door. ‘I might not have to rely so heavily on my good looks any more.’ He takes a roll of tightly folded and bound notes from his pocket and lobs it towards the foot of the bed. The money lands with a thud. ‘Some pocket money for the canteen. Don’t spend it all at once.’

Aden looks down the bed at it.

‘You might get some visitors tomorrow,’ Nigel tells him, ‘but I’ll come by in the morning and sort things out.’ He points his finger at Aden and tucks his head in behind it. He closes one eye, as though looking down the barrel of a gun. ‘I’ll bring you a chocolate rabbit.’

‘Wait,’ Aden says, looking at the money, ‘take Rebecca with you.’ He brushes his fingers across her thigh. ‘It’s all right, isn’t it, baby, if he runs you home?’

‘No.’

‘Go on,’ he says, ‘it’s just that Mum is busy tonight, and I don’t know if she’ll be able to take you.’

Rebecca gets reluctantly to her feet.

‘Come on, Becs, you’re in safe hands with me.’

‘Before you go,’ Aden says, ‘pass me that money, will you?’

Nigel hums a tune. Rebecca trails behind him. They walk through the hospital foyer, and out into the day. The sun beats down. A haze of heat distorts the surface of the highway. Cars zip by with regularity. Two male ambos are smoking by the casualty entrance. They lean on a bollard each and squint at the traffic. A dark-blue sedan pulls into the car park. Luke gets out from behind the wheel.

‘Look,’ Nigel says, ‘it’s one of the Keystone Cops.’

Luke approaches. He’s out of uniform. He has on shorts and a singlet. He has thongs on his feet. He draws nearer to Rebecca. The space he puts between them is measured – it’s a statement, close enough to imply something on his part. Rebecca leans away.

‘Police Constable Plod,’ Nigel says.

‘Pull your head in.’

They pass one another.

‘Oh, it’s in, don’t worry,’ Nigel says. ‘You guys sure taught me a lesson. Struggling to know what to do with my time …’

Luke stops and turns. ‘Wait ten minutes, Beccy, and I’ll take you home.’

‘Don’t trust
him
,’ Nigel says, ‘he has trouble just staying on the road. Those lines are a real blur to you, aren’t they, Lukie?’

Rebecca veers off between the parked cars. ‘I’ll walk,’ she says.

‘From here?’ Luke says. ‘It’ll take you the whole afternoon to get to Kiona.’

‘I don’t mind.’

Ten kilometres from Kiona Rebecca turns to see Luke’s sedan slowing behind her. He pulls the car onto the gravel verge. Rebecca gets in the passenger side without a word. She’s too tired to argue. She clicks in her seatbelt, holds her bag on her lap.

‘Where did you disappear to? I couldn’t find you.’

‘I cut through the paddocks.’

‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’

He pulls out onto the road. He drives slowly. Cars overtake. She glances across. There are a couple of
un-
cop things about him – he’s tanned, right the way to his chest, his legs the same allover brown, and this discredits her opinion that police sit all day behind desks or in vehicles. His mouth isn’t ugly. There are no food crumbs on his chest. He is unsettling though. It’s not necessarily his fault – it’s not that she finds him untrustworthy (although he is), or that she’s secretly attracted to him – she wouldn’t mind so much if that were what she felt. It’s his hair, his height, his job, his clothes, his car … There’s a queasy inevitability about it. Someone somewhere has jotted them down together, and it makes Rebecca’s heartbeat increase for all the wrong reasons. Panic. It reminds her of her mother’s relationship with Neil Toyer – the same predictability. It takes an awkward older man to put up with a chain-smoking brazen hussy. And it takes a fresh-from-cadetship cop to reveal Rebecca Toyer’s respectable side. She should be jumping at the chance to be made decent. It’s written in the town annals that they live
normal
ever after. But just because the powers that be deem it so doesn’t make it transferable to Rebecca’s heart.

‘I looked up fickle.’

‘Hey?’

‘In the dictionary. It means —’

‘I know what it means. I’m the one who said it to you.’

‘You did it again.’

‘What?’

‘You did it just then. You do it all the time.’

‘I’m sitting here – I did nothing!’

He looks away into the paddocks. She pulls her bag tighter into her lap and looks in the opposite direction. When she turns to face him, he is glancing at her.

‘Can we try that again?’

‘I suppose.’

‘I looked up fickle.’

‘Did you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fascinating.’

He exhales.

‘What did you find out, Luke?’