The Grief Hole, page 3
Her father collected her, pacing anxiously around the room. “There you are!” he said lightly. He hugged her fiercely, causing her to grunt in pain.
“Dad, I’m fine, but not if you break my ribs.” He had tears in his eyes. “Dad, don’t cry or you’ll set me off.”
“Come on then. You’ll stay with us for a few days. We’ll make some popcorn and watch a movie, ey? One about princesses and horses?”
Theresa laughed, although it hurt to do so. “Dad, I’m 24. Not 4!”
He drove cautiously, silently, to her childhood home. She noticed his hands tight on the wheel; he was usually a relaxed man.
“All right, Dad?”
“Not bloody all right. No. This bloody shit who did this to you…” Phil rarely raised his voice and she didn’t remember him ever losing his temper with her or her sister Giselle. “This arsehole….” Unused to articulating his rage, he let it sit.
Theresa looked out of her window. “What about her? Dad? His wife. My client. Did he really kill her or was he just saying it? Tell me he was just saying it. Tell me she’s okay.”
Phil said nothing. His mouth opened, shut, as if he couldn’t bear to talk.
Theresa started to cry. She’d cried a lot in hospital, alone in her room, letting the starched pillowcase soak up the tears. Here it seemed strange and out of place and in the silence her sobs eased.
“It’s all right,” Phil said. He’d stopped the car. He patted her hand, squeezed her fingers gently. “It’ll be all right. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
She saw ghosts around him; men of close to his age, squatting, slumped. Pants down. One of them holding a newspaper.
For fuck’s sake, he’s going to die on the dunny, Theresa thought.
It started raining.
“Bloody idiots!” Phil said. “Look at them! People always go crazy in the rain. It’s like they think driving faster gets them home and out of the rain faster, and they’re horribly surprised to find themselves in an accident.”
It was a three car pile-up. Clearly one dead; Theresa could see the mangled ghosts of previous victims. She watched as the ghosts gently reached in together and hitched out the new ghost, lifting it carefully out of its wrecked body. They rose with it, leaving the devastating scene behind.
“Did you see that?” Theresa whispered to her father. “Oh, it was almost beautiful.”
Her father shook his head. “I see nothing. Nothing at all.”
“You look after yourself, Dad,” she said as he drove on.
“Why?” His face looked startled. Frightened. And she realised that he believed absolutely in what she could see.
Two blocks from home, Phil said, “There she is again.”
It was Prudence, selling balloons on the street corner, her red face blurred amongst the brighter of them.
“I don’t want to talk to her,” Theresa said. “She came to the hospital and freaked me out.”
“She’s odd. No doubt about it. We’ll try to keep her away. It’s been years, hasn’t it? God knows where she’s been, but I wish she’d go back there.”
“She told me I was going to die drowning. I don’t even like the water.”
“You never did,” he said, although she had.
She’d loved it before she’d almost drowned when she was five, and had to be rescued by a stranger leaping into the water fully clothed. Her mother and father on the beach, oblivious. There had been fallout for that, Theresa remembered, and she knew that her sister Giselle blamed her, as if she’d deliberately fallen off the pier and nearly died. She’d never been keen to swim again although she loved the beach.
“She’s always been obsessed with you. She sent you a present every year, Teese, remember? Your fairy Godmother, she called her-self. Didn’t bother with Giselle, which caused problems, didn’t it?” Theresa remembered clearly. Each year a present would appear, something Theresa would fantasise as magical. Tiny flying pigs, dice that transformed into jewellery boxes, a chocolate bar that never ended.
But every year it was something useful; books about water safety, floating devices and life vests. Novels that started with drown-ings and ended the same way.
Theresa’s mother would put the gifts in the cupboard to donate them to the school fete.
As a child, Theresa thought Prudence was an imaginary friend because she was so weird and scary. And Theresa’s parents never talked about her. She was one of the many family no-go zones.
“Theresa means reaper,” Prudence told her when she was seven. “But it doesn’t mean you have to be like that. You don’t have to be a parasite. A vampire. You can be a strong woman, a fighting one.” Prudence was the one who convinced Theresa to ask to do karate classes, and join the debating team, and learn boxing. All things she’d given up after Ben died.
“Well, we’ll keep her away from you now. You’re not strong enough to deal with a crazy woman like that. She’s poison, your grandad always said. He wouldn’t let her in the house.”
Phil fussed getting Theresa inside and settled on the couch. Giselle had been to her house and packed some things for her. She’d done a terrible job; not enough underwear, too much sleep-wear, lots of the ugly stuff Theresa had been meaning to give away. They’d decided she needed babying. Theresa gave into it, although she knew there was much work to do, for the clients and for herself.
Her job had been her release for a long time. Hearing terrible stories made her feel grateful. Helping other people made her feel worthwhile.
“I have to keep my little girl safe,” Phil said. “I’m ready to smash him with a sock full of sand if he comes here.”
Theresa laughed, but stopped herself when she saw Phil’s face. He left the room for a few minutes and came back with a filled sock and a tomato. He put the tomato in the centre of the coffee table, wielded the sock and splattered the fruit.
“That’s…effective! Different if it was a person, Dad.” She picked up the sock, feeling how heavy it was.
“You know I was in Vietnam, Teese.”
“Yeah, but I thought you were a desk jockey. Ordering in supplies or something.”
“No. I was there.”
“Part of the job?” Theresa said. “Did you kill people?”
“I’ll tell you about it one day. Not today. I know how much you hate the nasties. You’re a gentle soul.”
“I’m always seeing nasties.”
“And yet you remain gentle and kind.”
“Like a child?” she said, but this made her feel as if she was acting like her mother, bitter, so she smiled at him. She hadn’t seen her ghosts since her attack.
They heard Lynda entering through the kitchen door, the rustle of bags, the smell of Thai takeaway. Even carrying plastic bags her mother was graceful, and Theresa felt like a great lump beside her.
“Our girl’s here,” Phil called out.
“Which one?” Lynda walked into the room. “Oh, Teese. I forgot you were coming.”
“I’m not hungry,” Theresa said.
Lynda served out the food for three of them anyway, washing up the containers as she went along. “Love the takeaway,” she said. “Your father makes such a mess of the kitchen when he cooks. And when he makes jam there’s no room for anyone to do anything.”
Theresa took a sip of Tom Yung Gung and winced. “I feel awful. My throat hurts.”
“You look better already than you did when I saw you in hospital. How did this happen? After everything you’ve seen, all you know?” Blaming her. Lynda hated failure of any kind.
“You’re the only one who agrees with me it was my fault. I can’t stand to think of those kids left without a mother.”
“I imagine that would have been her dying thought, knowing her kids would be left alone.”
The cruelty of this, the truth of it, made Theresa suck her breath in. She should have tracked down that tall, tanned man and fucked him up, before he had the chance to kill his wife. The ghosts had let her down.
“You must be used to it, in your job. Surely you’re used to people being awful to people. At least you’ll know he’s locked up. He won’t be able to get to you.”
“Thanks, Mum. Hadn’t thought about that.”
She wished her mother would hold her hand and tell her everything would be all right.
“It’s a shame you’ve got no one else to help you right now but us.”
“I’ve got plenty of friends to help me. You don’t have to worry,” but even as she spoke she wondered who she’d call. Which of her acquaintances she could ask to help.
Her mother hurrumphed, looked at her watch. “Too many friends, not enough close friends. It’s that job you do. I’ve always said so. This helping people nonsense. Help yourself, I say, and that way you help the world. And you won’t be at risk. Every day I worry about you. Every day I expect a phone call, and I wasn’t surprised when it came.”
“I’ve gone a long way without this happening, you know. Been in plenty of circumstances where it could have happened but didn’t. This took me by surprise.”
Theresa felt glad now that her mother had no sympathy. Any kindness would make her collapse.
“We should be quiet now. Save your throat.” Lynda was tired of talking; over it. She moved into the kitchen where she brewed the herbal tea no one else would touch.
Theresa slept well in her childhood bed and could almost imagine she was nine again, or ten.
Raul called her and she had to shut herself into the study to talk to him, because the sound of her voice seemed odd in the silence of the house.
“The funeral is tomorrow. I’ll come with you if you want to go. No one else is going but I think it would be okay if you wanted to.”
“You mean because it’s my fault she’s dead?”
“How is it your fault? She’s the one who married the man. All you did was try to help her.”
“All I did was get her killed. That’s all.”
“Listen, if you’re going to talk like that I say don’t go to the funeral. It won’t help you and it won’t help anyone. So what do you think? Talk to me, T. You can.”
“I hate talking about myself.”
“And that’s what makes you such a good listener. But you should talk.”
As Theresa dressed for the funeral, Phil called through her door, “You shouldn’t go. It’ll upset you.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being upset. I should be upset. She deserves that, at least.”
It was an awful affair, sparsely attended, the children up the front with a frazzled relative who seemed unsure of what was going on. People turned around at every noise and Theresa wondered if, like her, they feared the husband would show up with a rifle.
There were a lot of police in the room but not for protection, Raul said. “He’s actually a cop. Did you know that? That’s how he got the info. It’s gonna go hard for him in jail.”
Theresa got the sense she would not have to intervene for the children’s sake, that jail justice would take care of it again. She wanted to comfort the children, who recognised her and turned away. She hadn’t expected a thank you for finding them a place to live, but she’d thought they’d say hello. She wished she hadn’t lost the toys she’d bought; she could have given the children gifts. She felt gratified that her beating had saved them. If not for that, their father would have been on the streets and able to find them and who knew? Who knew what he would have done?
“Oh, the poor darlings,” she whispered to Raul. “Where are they going to live?”
“T, don’t worry about that. Someone’s taking care of it,” he said, meaning, this is not your file any more. Not your business. “They’re not going to be homeless.”
He’d been homeless himself for a long time and never forgot. Theresa thought cruelly that he still looked as if he lived on the street most of the time, with his scrawny, greasy hair, his floppy hat. He was always dirty-looking and skinny. An ex-drug addict, he was so filled with compassion and understanding Theresa felt like a better person being near him, as if the reflected glow of his pure need to help shone on her. Some people were like that; improving you by their presence.
“I’ll be back at work in a week,” she said. “I’ll take the file back then.”
“We miss you. I miss your coffee. Everyone else stuffs it up.” He touched her shoulder. “You have to wait till you’re physically ready, at least.”
“At least? You mean mentally I won’t be?”
“You’ll be fine,” he said, but he wouldn’t catch her eye. “But last time you…weren’t well, you took no time off at all, and you were exhausted.”
Theresa knew they all thought she felt responsible for the death of Client D; that she was too emotionally attached. They didn’t understand that she was not just responsible, but she had caused his death, and that the aftermath had been a vicious attack of shingles which left her distressed and in pain.
Raul and Theresa went out to eat after the funeral. He held her hand. “You did well. I’m glad you went.”
“Me too.”
“I was worried you’d get angry and all worked up and make decisions not in the best interests of everybody.”
“Thanks, Raul! Glad to know you trusted me.”
For another week, Theresa ate comfort food in front of the TV with her parents or on warm days, in the backyard, newspapers and magazines piled on the table in front of them. Giselle brought over old magazines, hag rags going back six years. Theresa hadn’t read one in a while and found the world of celebrity gossip a relief. The dates were hard to cope with, though, once she realised how far back the magazines went. This one was the day she and Ben had walked up a mountain. This one they’d read together, laughing at celebrity lives, feeling superior in their ordinary existence.
This one was the day of Ben’s death. She remembered people reading to her, wanting to distract her. And, she thought, testing her facilities.
After Ben died, Theresa couldn’t move for five days. Immobilised by the tranquilisers they fed her, she lay trapped with her thoughts and if she could have willed herself to death she would have. Those ghosts, shaking bottles at her, tempting her.
“My fault,” she’d tried to say, “MY FAULT!” But no one listened to a griever. Not even her counsellor, relentlessly cheerful, full of advice.
“We have to keep you busy,” the counsellor had said, and this made sense, because Theresa felt useless. Helpless.
She was not alone in this feeling. The counsellor had taken her to a session with other grievers, all of them talking in a circle, waiting for the other to finish, then jumping in with their own tragedy. Their own failure.
All of them, “If only, what if…” Especially the accident victims, where ‘what if’ was a real alternative. None of them, “From now on.” If only he was arrested before this had happened. What if we’d left. If only I’d had a place to go. What if I’d stopped him from swimming. If only I’d intervened.”
The ghosts in the room were palpable, but not overwhelming. When the counsellor talked, in his calm, helpful voice, the ghosts subsided even more. A grey-eyed man of fifty, he said, “Remember, people. Always have a happy thought ready. A memory not associated with your loved one. Anticipation of a future event, a pleasant smell or taste you remember. Something you can turn to when unwanted thoughts of your loss come to you.”
They had all nodded, murmured.
“And if that thought turns stale? Get yourself another. Fantasy is your friend.”
Theresa’s place was the beach. She loved it; the infinite grains of sand, the starting anew with each tide, the wiping clean. It meant warmth, relaxation, time to be alone.
Ben had disliked the beach; found it dull, too hot, too sandy. So there was no connection with him, an added benefit.
After the first session, the counsellor had taken her aside. He said, “You have a natural talent for listening, and asking the right questions, Theresa. You have an empathy I don’t see very often; an understanding of the suffering of others. An affinity. Have you ever thought of social work?”
That’s where it began. Theresa took a job finding shelter for those abandoned and afraid. And she intervened for the first time.
She called Giselle anyway to thank her for the magazines and invite her for a meal.
“No, the kids are sick. I’m exhausted. I’m not up for looking after you.”
“I don’t need looking after! I’d like to see you. And the kids.”
“And Nolan?”
“Him too.”
“We’ll see how the kids go. Enjoy the magazines.” Giselle was always terrified she’d be asked for more than she was willing to give. “Enjoy Mum’s cooking.” They laughed.
Lynda liked to experiment with food, and even when they were children she’d fed them adult food. When they were younger, they’d grown adept at secretly disposing of scraps of undercooked meat, of salty fish, of shredded, uncooked, too-spicy potato. Theresa ate adult meals from the moment she had teeth; steak Dianne, curries, pasta with anchovies and olives. She liked to visit friends’ houses for the plain food that was served up, which wasn’t hard because kids didn’t like visiting her. Lynda abhorred noise in the house, and some kids found her scary.
Theresa said to Giselle, “Dad’s been doing the cooking. Mum’s full on with some letter writing campaign. She needs plenty of wine to help her sort it.”
“We might be able to come when the kids are better.”
“I’m bored.”
“I sent you all those magazines.”
“They’re old as! What, did you clean out under your bed? What else did you find under there?”
“They’re not that old, are they?”
“They’re old. Like the CD collection here. It’s a joke. Three quarters Sol Evictus, one quarter Beethoven. I’m stuck with talking to Dad about plants and trying to get Mum to talk about anything.”
