Georgie could see it, even down to the kids’ faces, their sunsplit lips and she knew how it would be. They’d have those nasty white trash buzzcuts with rat-tails and BMX bikes rusty from being ridden through the shorebreak of the lagoon. Proud products of the community.
Why didn’t he see them off? Georgie asked, appalled. Beaver’s the size of a Kelvinator.
Rachel looked at her. Georgie felt she was being examined.
Georgie, he’s scared. Wake up. He can’t touch those kids. Think who they belong to. And Beaver’s position.
What is his position?
Jim never told you?
Told me what?
He’s got a criminal record as long as your arm, said Rachel. Armed robbery, mostly assaults.
Nobody told me this. Nobody.
So I see.
So what’s his story, Rachel?
The biker mob, said the other woman. He turned crown witness. A pack rape. But the case failed. And now there’s a lot of people with something on him or against him.
Nobody talks about it, said Georgie.
Not everybody knows. But the people who matter. They know.
Rachel, how do you know?
I knew him when he was in prison, she said. My other career, remember? I was—allegedly—a social worker for the Department of Corrections. But neither of us acknowledges our old life.
Jesus. Why does he live here, then? Wouldn’t you bury yourself in a city somewhere? Here he’s in the open.
His father was a fisherman here in the sixties. Maybe it’s somewhere he’s comfortable. And it’s only an educated guess, but I imagine that Beaver knows a few things from the good ole days. Lots of nasty secrets in this town, Georgie. Knowing a few things about your fellow townsfolk—well, that’d be money in the bank, wouldn’t it. That’d explain why he feels safe.
Well, you’ve thought about it a lot, I gather.
Hey, I’ve had the time.
The good ole days, muttered Georgie bitterly.
I don’t think he pines for them. His old days or anybody’s. I think he just wants a new life, a quiet life. Anyway, I doubt the good ole days are as far in the past as you might imagine. God, look at that view. Jim must feel like king of all he surveys.
After Rachel left, Georgie was restless and despondent. There had been something prickly about Rachel, something more than the lefty paranoia she suspected her of. The whole time Georgie had felt a mounting irritation coming off the other woman. The morning had not been a success.
She went down to the lagoon for a dip. The air was dry and hot, the water gorgeous.
• • •
When she got back to the house there was a message from Ann on the answering machine. Judith was in hospital. There had been a scene. Bob had taken her somewhere discreet. Georgie knew the place.
She called Jim first and then Rachel who agreed to collect the boys from school at three. Then she called her sisters but got either secretaries or answering services. She felt absurdly calm and it bothered her.
Beaver was short with her as he filled the canary Mazda with unleaded. She wanted to ask about the events of yesterday but his glare was enough to hold her off until he slapped the tank hatch home and brought back the keys.
Beaver, Rachel told me about those kids last night.
Gets better, he said. She pissed off.
Lois? No!
Shoulda known better. No way to get a wife. It’s undignified.
Those little bastards.
Back to Mrs Palmer and her five daughters.
She was nice, Beaver. I liked her.
So did I, he said bitterly.
I feel so terrible.
Don’t worry, he murmured. You’ll get over it.
Georgie drove out stung to the edge of tears. Her recent calm was gone. She missed it.
The hospital was close by the river and, as Ann said, very discreet. It was the establishment that Perth’s favoured families used for their elective procedures and their private weeks of drying out. After the mad, dysfunctional teaching hospitals that Georgie had trained in, the atmosphere of this place struck her as perfectly languid. There was no one at the nurses’ station crying into a pillowslip, that was for sure.
When she was finally allowed into Jude’s room she found her sister looking exhausted. Her skin was waxy, her lips chapped. When she hugged her there didn’t seem enough of her.
Pumped me out, said Jude hoarsely.
Sorry? Georgie said pulling back a moment to look her in the face. Jude looked down at her own hands.
Pumped my bilge, Jude croaked.
You took something?
Everything. Throat hurts.
Christ, Jude, when?
Tuesday? Yesterday.
Georgie hugged her again. She felt dull with shock: the idea.
That’s it. I’m officially nuts.
No, you’re just miserable.
Weak.
No.
Weak.
Jude.
You’re the tough one.
Georgie ripped a couple of tissues from the box on the bedside cabinet.
Been thinking of Mum today, said Jude. One time the both of them were all dressed up for dinner? Mum in this tight, pink dress, backless, you know. Us in our jarmies looking at her come down the stairs so beautiful. And Dad says, like a comedian, out the corner of his mouth: Lights on, nobody home; but such pretty lights. Georgie, did I imagine that?
Georgie shook her head, pressed the wet tissues to her mouth.
See, said Jude. I married my father.
Downstairs in the lobby thirty minutes later Georgie made a rash of angry calls. Why hadn’t she been told earlier? What was all the secrecy, for Godsake? How did they plan to deal with this? But even as she barked and gestured futilely, she was thinking of herself, of her own inattention, her failure to read the plainest of signs.
Before she left she called her father; it was almost an afterthought. His secretary told her he was in Fremantle, that he was leaving for Rottnest Island in forty minutes and that Georgie could catch him on his cell phone. When he answered, the old man was earnest. He sounded so worried. Could they possibly meet?
It took Georgie half an hour to get down to the marina. Her father and Cynthia were on the dock in their poncey sailing outfits, all deck shoes and polarized shades on lanyards. Cynthia wore so much make-up Georgie figured she used it as sunscreen. The old boy’s legs were white and scaly. The three of them kissed awkwardly.
Before Georgie could get to the point, which was surely Jude’s immediate future, the old man placed a sheaf of papers in her hands. These were the registration and insurance details of a vessel called Closing Address. It was already in her name. Georgie looked up at him. His face nearly split with pleasure.
Take us out one day, he said stepping down onto a big, white Bertram, whose motors, she realized, had been running the whole time.
Cynthia pecked her on the cheek and, radiant with an emotion upon which Georgie could only speculate, cast off the boat’s lines and stepped aboard. Stepmother. Cynthia waved, still beaming, and when the boat swung out and turned, Georgie saw the name emblazoned across the stern. Summary Affair. Good God. Why not Billable Hours?
Watching them glide from the marina Georgie had to face the fact of his love. She’d seen it in his grin. Along with all that manly hubris there was love. But of a kind that mystified her. Behind these years of hurt glances there was a hectoring persistence to it and yet it never felt intimate, or even personal. His devotion was, bizarrely, strategic. This past few weeks he’d tried to demonstrate affection with his gift and she’d rebuffed it. She could feel him straining for something; she almost felt guilty. But here it was, the cold nub of it: even at full stretch he had to plot, to ploy, and then win. Georgie knew that she’d been served. The gift bestowed the way you serve a summons or a writ. By canny entrapment. Even in fatherly love, the great game. To serve upon. That was his idea of service. This was love.
Over at the yacht club Georgie was directed to the hardstanding by a perky young boatman who kept eyeing her legs. Closing Address stood up on wedges and a frame, its keel blasted clean.
Jeanneau, the boy said. Pretty good for a production boat.
It was a Sun Odyssey; Georgie knew the design. Forty feet of glossy kevlar with lovely sheer and a sleek, low coachroof. The cockpit was ample despite the split pulpit and the twin helms. Mast, lines, brightwork—they all gleamed. It was everything you could want; you could sail this boat anywhere.
Hardly been in the water, said the boy. All the fruit. Interested in boats are you?
Only mine.
Got one, have you?
Yes, she said pointing.
Fuck me, he said. He made it sound like an invitation.
Georgie walked up to the offices across the tarmac, found a broker and sold the boat inside twenty minutes.
When Georgie saw her again not an hour later Jude seemed fogged in. Her earlier raw sadness was gone. She seemed to swim slowly up out of some happy reverie at Georgie’s approach, but within seconds she was agitated. Georgie knew even as she was doing it that this was clumsy but she felt compelled to put the cheque on the blanket beside her sister’s hand. Despite the discount for haste, it was still a lot of money.
You can leave him, Jude. With this you can buy somewhere of your own. Get a lawyer, do whatever you need to do. You’re not stuck, okay? When you’re feeling better you can leave. Take Chloe. Have your own life.
But it’s stealing, said her sister, bewildered. It has your name on it.
I can fix that, sis. Jesus, it’s simple.
We’ll get caught.
Jude, I’ll get you a new cheque. Forget you saw this one.
I can’t forget! Jude bellowed.
A perfumed nurse appeared in the doorway.
Please, Jude pleaded with the nurse. Tell her I can’t forget.
Georgie folded the offending draft and left without having to be asked.
TWICE THAT WEEK Georgie drove to the city to see her sister. She left at nine when the boys went to school and was home well before three each time. Jude was like a sleepwalker; it broke your heart to see it.
On Saturday she took Brad and Josh with her. They needed shoes. She took them to the science park for their trouble and afterwards let them wait in the hospital lobby while she visited Jude. It was a glum, bewildering half-hour. She didn’t raise the issue of money—Jude’s attitude had hardened irrationally with the passing days, and the cheque was now an unsettling figure in Georgie’s bank account.
Heading back in the long drowsy afternoon she averted her gaze as they passed the fruit stand. Up around the bend a white plume rose above the trees. The boys stirred, pointing.
It was dust not smoke.
Rounding the bend they saw a child running barefoot along the road. There was a car in the ditch.
Georgie slowed to a stop.
I know who that is, said Brad.
Just stay here, said Georgie. Don’t get out of the car. You’ll have a big job in a minute, d’you understand? When I bring her back you hold that girl and talk to her and keep her in the car.
It’s hot, said Josh.
That’s Charlotte, said Brad.
Georgie snapped on the hazard lights and chased the whimpering child along the roadside until she could take her hand and lead her back. There was blood on the girl’s arm and on her clothes but it didn’t seem to be her own. She looked about nine years old; she was cold with shock. The boys looked white-faced as Georgie opened the Mazda door.
G’day, Charlotte, said Josh timidly.
The little girl hiccupped. She sat passively between the boys, who stared at her. Georgie closed the door and took a breath.
The car across the road had rolled and come to rest back on its wheels. It was tilted in the limestone rubble of the ditch, warped out of shape. There was blood all down the driver’s door. A head of black, curly hair rested upon the sill of the open window.
Georgie tried the passenger door but it was mashed shut. The window was open; she thrust her head in, sick with dread.
Hello? the driver, a woman, said.
Georgie wormed in through the window, across the glass and stones on the seat and took hold of the console to steady herself. The driver’s face was distorted by gore and the way she was wedged with her chin against her shoulder. And there was the hair. The scalp was lifted back from the forehead enough to make those black curls seem misplaced. The woman’s eyes were glued almost completely shut by blood and it pooled in the reservoir of her compressed cleavage. Her blouse was glossy with it.
She mouthed something Georgie didn’t catch.
Tired, did you say? You need to stay awake. Can you stay awake for me?
The tyre, said the driver. Blew a tyre.
Georgie was right up to her, thinking that it wasn’t so bad, just messy, when she saw the arm the driver was shielding from view by the twisted way she was seated. The right arm. Stripped to the bone. The muscle was a snarl of meat and tendon. It had been out the window by the look; she’d rolled the whole car over it. Already the hand upturned on her thigh was turning puce. Not good.
Charlotte? the woman asked.
She’s in my car. She’s okay. She’s all right. Was there anyone else?
No.
You’re doing fine, Georgie said, struggling toward the bright matter-of-factness, the casual confidence she used to be able to grind up for nine hours every day. She looked in dread at the arm, noting the steady loss of colour. There was no obvious spurting blood vessel. She looked for somewhere on that mess to tie a compression bandage, a tourniquet. Jack-knifed through the window like that, Georgie wriggled out of her bra and tied it above the elbow where the flesh was shirred like a puffy sleeve. The woman whimpered, stayed conscious, and as she shifted there was a squelch from the bucket seat beneath her.
A car seemed to approach and slow. God, thought Georgie, let this be someone who knows what they’re doing so they can take over, so they can figure this out.
Reassuring the injured driver, promising she’d only be gone a second, she writhed back out.
A woman in a silver Pajero slowed to a stop. She was either stunned or wary because it took her a few moments to unwind the window.
Oh, love, she said. Are you all right?
As calmly as she could manage, Georgie told the woman to call an ambulance on her cell phone, immediately, to ask for the White Point ambulance because it was closer and to turn around and drive back to White Point with the kids in that car across the road. They would show her where to drive them. To the roadhouse, yes the service station and go now, now.
Climbing back through the window of the car Georgie saw that the driver was still conscious but shaking, and her arm was grey. She figured the ambulance was half an hour away at best, forty-five minutes if things went badly finding the rostered volunteers. From here it was ninety minutes to the city’s nearest hospital. The arm was history. Georgie’s only hope was to keep her going, that they might keep the patient alive long enough to make it to the city.
The Pajero left in a clash of gears.
Georgie thought about pulling her out now, making a dash for it in the bubble car. It’d cut half an hour from the wait. But every rule was against it. She knew the bleeding would start anew the moment she moved her and she’d probably arrest before she got her into the Mazda.
She pulled herself across the gear shift and craned around to look at the arm again. Right below the shoulder, at the joint, there was a seepage. A wound she hadn’t even seen before. The driver’s breast lay against it. The weight of the woman’s body was against the door. That’s where all the blood was from. She’d opened a major blood vessel and fallen back on the limb; the woman was holding herself together.
Cicadas beat away in the wattles beyond the ditch.
I write with my left hand, said the woman.
Well, that’s a stroke of luck, said Georgie, wondering
if a shoelace would do. If she couldn’t keep the position then Georgie’d have to find the vessel and tie it off. She didn’t fancy the chances.
You probly had the boys with you?
Sorry?
Joshie’s in Charlotte’s class.
She’s fine, said Georgie absently. Really, she’s okay.
Don’t let me die, Georgie.
You won’t die. The blokes’ll be here any minute.
This road’s a bugger.
Any road’s a bugger when you’re upside down in a car, said Georgie. Keep her talking, she thought.
It’s unlucky, this road. That family. Those people.
Charlotte, said Georgie aloud trying to place Josh’s classmate. There was nothing familiar about this woman’s bloodsoaked and distorted face.
The dog.
You’re okay.
He shouldna done it. I’m sorry.
It’s all right. Help’s coming.
The woman began to take deeper breaths. Oh, Lord, Georgie thought, here it comes, she’s gonna die. Oh God. But the woman seemed to come to a crisper consciousness.
After Debbie died, she murmured, Jim lost pride, you know…My Gavin always looked up to him and his father, oh, Big Bill, he was a man…There’s standards, Georgie.
I’m sorry, but do we know each other?
It’s Avis.
Avis? McDougall?
Standards.
Georgie pulled herself up and sat in the seat across from the injured woman. God, the pain she must be in. It was Avis McDougall but you had to search for the features you knew her by. She thought of all the misfortune she’d wished upon these people.
Think about our children with no jobs while this country is…Asianized. That’s what I mean…And there’s no honour, Georgie. Not like there used to be.
Georgie sat there. She would listen to it. Whatever hateful bullshit Avis came out with, she’d let her go on. What was the point of arguing, and what right do you have in setting someone straight when they’re dying anyway?
Those Foxes. They were low. And thieves. And druggies.
Avis—
But it wasn’t right about the dog…You shouldna been with him, Georgie. You brought shame on Jim Buckridge.