The Whole of My World (26 page)

I recognise Mick's car by the sound its engine makes when it pulls up at the curb beside me. I must have fallen asleep.

‘Get in.'

I can't move properly. Everything hurts, and I'm cold all the way to my bones. I drag myself up from the damp grass and let Mick steer me towards the car. The car smells like liniment and sweat. And beer. My stomach retches in the close air and the road swims before my eyes. Mick doesn't look at me as he drives. And I don't want to look at him either. Then I remember. ‘We need to find Tara.'

‘She's fine. I got her a cab and sent her home.'

Relieved, I sink into the warm car seat, the rumble of the engine and the rhythmic bump of the wheels on the tramline threatening to lull me to sleep. I shake myself and sit up.

Twenty minutes later, the familiar dark street looms. ‘Just here,' I say, hoarsely, suddenly wishing I could say something to undo it all. It's over. I don't know what happened or what's happening now, but it feels like a line was drawn, and I've crossed it without meaning to. We both have. I turn to get out of the car but Mick reaches out to me, his hand gentle on my arm, his eyes wet and bleary.

‘I'm sorry,' he says again. ‘I shouldn't have –'

I shake my head. ‘I don't care.' The tightness in my chest has turned into something harder. He wants me to forgive him but I can't even look at him. To look at him would be to look at myself. I was there too, after all.

We get out of the car only to see Dad on our front lawn, standing in the soft grey light, and then he's running towards me and my heart constricts in my chest. ‘Dad? What . . . ?'

I stand by and watch as Dad hurls himself at Mick like a maniac, thrusting Mick against his car.

‘Whoa. Whoa,' Mick says, holding his hands up in surrender.

‘Dad! Please!'

Dad's face is twisted unnaturally, his eyes wild with anger, and something that looks like terror. For a moment I think he might have been crying.

I force myself between them. ‘I'm okay, Dad. See? I'm okay.'

Dad steps back, almost falling as though a physical force has pushed him. ‘What are you doing with my daughter?' he growls through gritted teeth. His face is ashen and gleaming with sweat, despite the cool air.

Mick looks away and shakes his head. ‘I'm sorry.'

Dad looks ready to hurl himself at Mick again but I manage somehow to stay him. ‘Dad! Nothing happened. He just drove me home. I'm sorry I'm so late.'

Scepticism crosses Dad's face. But when someone says something you desperately want to believe, when they tell you what you need to hear, then sometimes logic and truth don't matter. ‘Where's Tara?' Dad says finally, clearly worried.

‘She should be home,' I say, looking at Mick for assurance. ‘Mick put her in a taxi.'

‘Her mother's been calling – she's not there,' Dad says, the fact of Mick's involvement doing nothing to take the edge out of his voice. ‘Where is she?' he shouts at Mick.

Mick won't look at me. The silence is suffocating.

‘Mick?' I say.

Dad and I are both staring at Mick. It takes an age before he shakes his head slowly. I suddenly realise he's still drunk and I shudder then, realising how lucky I am we got home safely.

‘She was at the taxi rank . . .' he says finally, lifting his shoulders in a kind of shrug.

‘What?' My voice is just above a whisper. ‘You didn't put her in a cab?'

‘I'm sure she's fine,' he says, concern clear in his features, belying his words. He regrets it. But I can't ignore that initial shrug – the distancing between his actions and responsibility. I see it then, in that gesture. That's what we are to him, to the other players – to the whole club. We're nothing more than shadowy figures filling an empty space. The people they meet on the way to somewhere else. They move on while we remain in place, the dull backdrop to their stunning lives. Tara. Red. Jim-Bob. The Lovely Ladies.

And me.

I turn to Dad. ‘We have to go back.'

Mick opens the car door for me, ready to fix the unfixable.

‘No,' I say, pushing the door shut. I'm getting used to this word. It's not as difficult to say as I once believed.

‘I should come,' Mick says.

‘No, you shouldn't.' Nothing can make me change my mind. ‘Dad? Please?'

Dad nods. ‘I'll call her mother.'

 

Dad watches the Fernlee Park chaos with horrified awe. There are tired, drunken revellers still singing the Glenthorn theme song, with other distant, disembodied voices rising to join in an eerie kind of wail. Bits of clothing and rubbish are scattered throughout the stadium, along with broken glass and discarded plastic bottles. The stench of alcohol and vomit is overwhelming. My stomach does something acrobatic in the small space left to contain it.

I head to the press box because there's nowhere else to go. It's the only place I haven't looked and, I realise too late, the first place I should have. Dad follows silently behind me, his steps heavy. We climb the steps gingerly, the pre-dawn light doing little to brighten the dark edges of this secluded corner. I force the stiff door open to reveal Tara asleep on the ground. Dad and I rush to her – and I immediately see that her colour isn't right, even under what's left of her smeared make-up. She's so pale, even for her, and her arm is twisted unnaturally under her body.

‘Tara!' I bend beside her, trying to wake her. Dad kneels on the other side of Tara, his face almost as pale as hers. He's been here before and it's killing him having to be here again. It's killing me too. Tara doesn't wake, and panic grips me tightly. I don't know what to do.

‘Dad?' I cry, but he doesn't respond. ‘Daddy!' I step back, my legs wobbling beneath me, my knees locking up in fear or shock. I'd scream but I've lost my voice.

Dad startles, as though suddenly awake. He pushes me out of the way and leans over Tara. I watch him check her breathing, turning her over and clearing her mouth. He goes through the steps of CPR, which I didn't even know he knew.

‘She's breathing,' he says finally, relief thickening his voice. ‘She's breathing.' But she still isn't awake. ‘Call an ambulance, love,' he says.

I stare at him in terror, unable to move. His face softens, his whole body curls in towards me. ‘Go call an ambulance,' he says gently. ‘She'll be okay.'

The kindness in his voice, the love and understanding, shakes me from the paralysing fog. And I run out of there, straight towards the lone security guard at the social club, who disappears inside to call Triple 0. When the ambulance shows up, I guide the officers to where Dad is standing watch over Tara. When he looks at me, his eyes are tired and emotional but also strangely alive. For the first time in a long time, he looks genuinely alive.

I see then what it is I've given him – a child who he can save.

 

 

Once Mrs Lester shows up, Dad and I have nothing else to do. The doctors in Emergency won't talk to us. Mrs Lester, though shocked and upset, is the most attentive I've seen her.

‘Tara's going to be fine,' Mrs Lester assures us after she's spoken to the doctors. ‘She needs to sleep it off and get some liquids back into her, but she'll be okay.'

When we leave, Mrs Lester grips my hands and smiles, her gaze even and her hands steady. ‘Thank you,' she says, ‘for taking care of Tara.'

‘No,' I say, letting her hold me when really I want to push her away. ‘I didn't . . .' She has to know that part of this is my fault. I'm supposed to be Tara's friend and yet I left her there, drunk and hopeless. And angry. All because of my obsession with Mick Edwards. ‘I should have stayed with her,' I say. ‘I . . .' But Mrs Lester smiles at me and pulls me into an awkward kind of hug. I don't argue, I just whisper that I'm sorry and, amazingly, I don't cry a single tear.

‘Thank you for being there when I couldn't,' Mrs Lester says to Dad, who nods, all businesslike. I know she's talking about tonight, but I feel like she means something bigger than this. I hope she does, anyway.

 

I don't speak in the car on the way home. I've never felt so tired. I slump against the car door and press my head against the window, the seatbelt pulled roughly across me. Dad drives in silence. It's Sunday morning. Too early for church traffic. It feels like we're the only people awake.

I stare at the shadows as they cut swathes across the back of the front seat of the station wagon. My mouth tastes vile, my tongue thick and claggy in my mouth. It's possible I might be sick again. I pull myself up from where I was lying, pain like glass cutting through my skull.

‘Almost there,' Dad says into the rear-view mirror, without meeting my eye.

I nod and swallow. I have no idea what awaits when we pull up to the house, but I can take it. I will face it. Finally. As we pull up, I notice that Mick has gone. Of course he would leave, I tell myself, ashamed that I care enough to check.

Inside, Dad leads us wordlessly into the kitchen, as though this neutral space is the only one where we can trust ourselves and each other. He immediately heads to the sink and places the dirty coffee mug and teaspoon into the dishwasher, shutting the door with a solid thud, removing the evidence of his restful vigil.

I watch him shift before me in our bare, brown-and-white kitchen. It's Dad again. The same man he was before we went to find Tara, the same tired, hard and difficult man. And that's okay, I decide. This man . . . The one who raised me. The one waiting for me to speak, his hands spaced evenly on the island bench between us, fingers spread, his weight pressing against them. This man is my dad, and that's okay.

‘That could have been you.' It comes out little more than a whisper.

I wait for him to look at me but his eyes remain on the bench in front of him. ‘Dad?'

A deep rumbling sigh escapes him, from the depths of somewhere dark and private. A heartbreaking sound.

‘Please? We need to talk.'

He shakes his head slowly, sadly. The weight of it seems to drag him down. ‘I can't look at you,' he says simply. He slumps forward and crosses his arms, resting his head against them, as though the effort to hold himself is too great.

‘You have to.'

He doesn't move and I wonder if he's fallen asleep.

‘I'm here.'

‘Later,' he says tiredly, managing to lift his face long enough to answer, then returns to the benchtop as though gravity is a force too enormous to fight.

‘No,' I say, surprising myself. I'm not sure I've ever refused him so completely before.

He faces me then, lifts his grey head high enough to study me. ‘Don't start.'

‘We can't ignore it anymore.'

‘Not now.'

‘Yes now.'

‘Shelley, you need to go to bed.'

I shake my head, the tears welling. I slam my hand on the island bench. ‘No!'

My dad stands up, defeat curving his shoulders. ‘Please. I can't do this now. Go to bed. Sleep on it.'

‘No.'

‘Shelley!' His voice rises more in disbelief than anger.

‘No! No! No!' I shout, crying. My hand stings where it caught the edge of the bench, and my head is aching with all it has to hold, including the hangover that threatens to evict the contents of my stomach.

He stares at me, confused.

‘I miss them,' I say. ‘Okay? I miss Mum and I miss Angus and I want to know that that's all right.'

‘What does that have to do with anything?' He stands tall now, as though the very mention of Mum and Angus is enough reason to fight.

‘It's everything!' I shout. ‘It's all there is!' But even I know that's not true, not entirely. There's more here for us – there has to be. Yet, surely, that's where we have to start?

‘You think I don't miss them too?' he says, incredulous.

‘It's like they don't exist!' I wail. ‘Like they died twice! The first time in the car and then, again, when we came home. You made them disappear! You took them away!' Great wracking sobs consume me. I take a long ragged breath, forcing my voice to calm and my heart to slow. ‘And now I want them back,' I say finally.

‘You think this is any easier for me?' Dad whispers.

I can feel the pain in my chest at the idea of his suffering. I feel like I always do – like I always
did
. But I can't just let my pain go in the face of this guilt. Not this time. I back away, refusing to give up.

I rush to my room, taking less than a minute to find the one thing he can't deny or argue, the one thing he can't ignore. I hold out the Arnotts biscuit tin, placing it between us like an offering, a precious, fragile thing.

I watch his face, lit by the early morning gloom, as it moves from tired confusion to awful recognition.

‘Where did you get this?' His voice is hard like gravel.

‘Where you put it.' I tilt my chin in defiance. My whole body tingles and my head feels light. And then Dad's face shifts. The frozen horror transforms in increments, the edge of his mouth, the look in his eyes, shifting visibly from closed to open, as though a door has been unlocked. The softness I saw when he'd placed his jacket to pillow Tara's neck reappears, but where before he seemed stronger for it, now he appears a little bit broken.

I suspect he already was. We both are.

I reach out to place my hand on his, crossing the chasm between us in the form of a brown Laminex bench. I move around the bench and touch his shoulder, draping my arm across his back. I realise I've grown since I last did this. I could barely stretch my arm across the width of him two years ago.

His back slackens and he leans against the bench as wracking sobs escape from him. For a long minute I don't move. I don't want to shift my hand from his back or draw attention to the fact that he is distressed and I am witnessing it. I understand that this is the most honest thing that has ever happened between us and that, if I blink or baulk, it will be gone and never mentioned again. So I wait until the sounds fade and the tears stop, then I take Dad's hand and lead him to the kitchen chair. For a moment he resists, but then he eases himself onto the brown vinyl cushion. I hold the tin out to him again.

There is the barest tremble in his hands, his face still pale but his gaze steady and unyielding. I feel the cool sides of the tin slip through my fingers. He sits it on his knee and slides the battered lid off. He picks up the top photograph, holds it high to the weak sunlight that falls in thin pools across the kitchen floor. He studies the picture as though deciphering a foreign language, searching it for subliminal messages or secret codes. He places the photo on the table, then chooses another, and another, placing them beside one another. Row upon row collects over the next minutes. When the tin is empty, he focuses on the spread before him, fully immersed in the task, considering each row solemnly. He starts moving the photos around, grouping them, not according to chronology or subject, from what I can see, but in line with some obscure or secret reasoning. I watch all of this wordlessly from my seat beside him. And by the end, forty or more photographs are laid out in nine groups of varying number and combination.

Finally, he looks up, the colour drained from his face. He looks exhausted. Yet the slump has left his shoulders, his back has returned to its usual straight posture, his chin is high and strong in its ordinary certainty.

‘Dad? I'm sorry,' I say finally, the weight of it enormous and suffocating.

He cocks his head, confused. ‘Sorry?'

‘For what I said . . . to Angus.'

Dad frowns, trying to understand. And I realise he doesn't know. ‘Tell me. Please. What are you talking about?'

‘Before the accident –'

‘No,' he says, cutting me off.

‘I have to.'

He studies me in silence, weighing it all up. And then he nods.

‘I told Angus I wished he was dead. That I wasn't a twin. But I didn't mean it. I wish he was here now. All the time, I keep wishing he was here.'

Dad breathes hard. Something like a sob catches in his throat. He nods again, tears running down his face. ‘I know that, Shelley. I know that.' He sucks in hard. ‘Angus knows it too,' he whispers. He stands tall then, composing himself physically. ‘You need some sleep,' he says, moving away from the table.

‘Dad?' I ask, not sure what I want to say exactly. Is he okay? Are we okay? I want to know if I can fix this, if there's anything left that isn't broken. But I can't seem to put a voice to those words. Too much has happened.

He manages a tired smile that doesn't reach his eyes, but I'm so grateful for this gesture that I almost start to cry. ‘It's a lot, Shell,' he says, his hand sweeping over the photos sprawled out on the table. ‘It's just a lot,' he says again. He means, let's take it one week at a time.

And for now, that will have to do.