The Trouble With Dying Page 19

  It’s true. Cynthia and I really were best friends.

  Sudden grief wells in me. Why? I fight back tears. Why has it come to this?

  But I don’t have time to dwell on any of that right now. I turn my back on Venice.

  The opposite wall is embellished with a dozen or more black-and-white canvas-mounted photos, each beautiful in their own right but as a collage the effect is stunning.

  At the bottom of each canvas is the flamboyant signature, ‘C Barton-Wilde, 2014’. That’s right: Cynthia’s training to be a portrait photographer.

  Sit here. Look there. Lean back. Smile. Look at me. Chin up. Hair down. Don’t smile. Great! Her talent was obvious, her eye impeccable. I loved posing for her because she always made me look so good. I had no doubt she’d make it as a professional photographer, and neither did she. I’m good at this. My name will be on everyone’s lips.

  “Three . . .”

  I study the photos more carefully and, sure enough, there’s one of me in her gallery. Maybe the black and white finish smooths out all my blemishes, or maybe she’s done some serious editing—either way, I feel a flush of pride. But it disintegrates as I take in another photo.

  My hands tremble. It’s a head-and-shoulders self-portrait. Cynthia, mysterious and beautiful, standing at a mirror with bare shoulders and darkened lips. In the blurred background a man looks on, shirt unbuttoned, tie hanging open at his neck.

  Despite the discreet anonymity offered by the blurring, his posture gives him away. It’s Geoff. Married Geoff, I realise as I look at the date, and he’s posing half-naked for his wife’s best friend.

  Sure, help out a friend and pose for the odd photo, but don’t feel you have to get your gear off.

  My stomach flips, leaving me nauseous. There it is, in black and white. Their relationship. And she’s made it look artistic and sexy, damn her.

  Fine. If she’s got that photo, there must be others. I bet she’s got them saved in her computer, which is . . .? Study. Down the hall to the left.

  Instantly I’m there. The computer’s screensaver floats lazily across the screen. This time I don’t even have to think about focusing; furious energy moves the mouse before my hand’s even close.

  A few clicks and I’m there. Photos, 2014. I scroll through the folders, speed-reading the names.

  Friends and family. Sounds promising. Click. Scroll. Yep, plenty of Geoff photos, but plenty of our whole family. Nothing remotely dodgy there.

  Personal. Maybe. Click. One photo. A car number plate. I frown at it, then remember the door-to-door salesman she thought was burgling her neighbour’s house.

  X. X? Click. Scroll.

  Bingo.

  I feel like a peeping tom but scroll through the folder anyway. Dozens of photos, dating back at least a year. Restaurants, parks, the beach, her apartment, tourist spots . . . every photo an intimate bloody moment between Cynthia and Geoff.

  And some more intimate than others. I double-click on one and gasp at the image that fills the screen. Oh God, yuk. Now I really am a peeping tom.

  I gawk at the photo. Bullets of anguish blast deep in my gut. Much as I wanted proof of their affair, the stark truth of this image sears my eyes, my soul. How did they get in that position? How did they get out of that position? Why photograph themselves in that position? It doesn’t look like art to me.

  But it sure as hell does look like motive.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Writing in steam is hard enough, but it’s got nothing on this. The lipstick slips from my fingers and clatters on the white-tiled floor, leaving an angry streak of red.

  Red. The perfect colour for my message. Just look at those letters! Stark and red and totally unmissable against her perfect lily-white wall.

  SLUT.

  Petty. But satisfying. Hands on hips, I face the living room. What next?

  Tess, that’s what. I can’t, can’t have her living with Cynthia. Cynthia’s out for herself, and motherhood simply doesn’t work that way. But Geoff is going to make her a permanent feature, of that I’m sure. Therefore, much as I don’t want to overload Mum, she needs to have Tess. There’s no other way. I have to make Mum fight for her, tooth and nail.

  Before I’ve even finalised the plan in my head, I’m back at Cynthia’s computer. This time it’s harder to move the mouse, and it takes three attempts to successfully double-click.

  Hurry. Hurry. Gran infiltrates my thoughts.

  There it is. Cynthia’s email editor. Another click and I’ve started a new message. Thirty seconds more, that’s all I need.

  With jerky movements I enter Mum’s email address, thankful I remember it. Come on, fingers. Faster! Faster! Which photo to attach? I desperately scan the folder names, but they seem to be scrolling slower and slower. Crap. Hurry up.

  There it is. X.

  I try to move the cursor, but it’s like fighting through neck-deep sludge. Come on! Double-click, not single; double.

  Hurry, Faith. Her voice is urgent.

  I’m trying! Fuck. My hand shakes like an old woman’s. Why did I waste all that energy defacing a stupid wall?

  I stop, close my eyes, and focus. Come on, think positive. You can do this.

  But I can’t. I can’t manage more than a single freaking click.

  Ooh! Press Enter instead. I refocus, praying to God and Gran and every other cosmic force around.

  Yes! I’m in. I quickly scan the thumbnail images, sordid little snippets of smut. Which one? Which one?

  “Clear . . .”

  Any! Who cares? Just click on one. I click. No! Double-click, dammit!

  My heart suddenly clenches, tight, like a clam under siege, and for a moment I stop, breathless. That felt different. That wasn’t me here, that was me back there.

  Quick! Double-click, while there’s still time. Please, please . . . Thank you. Now, hit Send . . .

  Mum will be horrified, and outraged, and once she knows what Geoff really means every time he says he’s ‘working late’ she’ll be determined to keep Tess permanently at her side. My plan’s not perfect, but it’s the best I can do for my girl now I’m dead.

  I take a deep breath, channelling my entire soul into the mouse. The cursor slides closer to ‘Send’.

  Almost there . . . one more centimetre . . .

  I’m pulled away from the computer before I can finish, dragged backwards like a wayward child being yanked into line.

  “No!”

  I turn, expecting to face Geoff or Cynthia and fully prepared to do whatever it takes to stop them, because it’s my wee girl’s future at stake and that email has to be sent and if I have to go to Hell for it then so be it.

  But nobody’s there. The room is empty of any kind of presence, living or dead.

  And still I feel that relentless pull. The cursor stops and waits, blinking. I lunge for the mouse with both arms, scrabbling, desperate. The pull strengthens. Backwards, backwards, I’m hauled inexorably out of the study.

  I claw at the door, the couch, a barstool, but it’s as if magnetic north is calling all magnets home and there’s a big one lodged right in my butt.

  I’m whipped out through the lounge wall then the exterior wall, only to catapult through the air, several storeys high, faster and faster until it’s all a blur of colour and sound, and my memories are rocketing through my mind at the same speed, a whole lifetime of people and places and feelings and plans, and I’m dizzy and scared and hot and cold and what’s going on and I need to press Send and stop it I don’t like it and wish I’d done it better and sorry Gran for being weak and—

  # # #

  Shit.

  It's still my least favourite room in the world, with the same boring view and the same body in the bed and the same annoyingly regulated p-shhh. It’s like I never left.

  Except the crash team are here, all four of them, along with their trolley of medical gadgetry.

  I stare at Faith-in-the-bed. Two hand-sized white, flat pads are stuck to my torso, att
ached by wires to something on the trolley. I don’t need to know what all this stuff is to know what’s been going on.

  They’ve shot me full of electricity. Several times.

  Good grief, my poor body. I hope they haven’t fried my brain.

  Would I know if they had? Maybe I can think just fine up here but down there my brain is a useless blob of jelly. That would really suck. Especially now, because I finally have memories. Not a lifetime’s worth, sadly, but I still have every memory that returned while I was . . . you know.

  Dead.

  “We’ve got a pulse.”

  The crash team’s shoulders relax as one.

  I’m glad I pushed past my fear and faced the balcony, because now I know Sylvia was the one who found me.

  But I still don’t know how it happened. I didn’t see what Geoff actually did to me. How much did Sylvia see, I wonder?

  Not that it would change my current predicament. I’m still stuck outside my body, wondering when Geoff will pull the plug on my life.

  “Good work.” The doctor smiles at each of the crash team nurses.

  Another check of the monitor and she checks her pager. “I’m needed in trauma. Helen, you talk to the family.”

  One of the crash team nurses nods and follows the doctor out of the room.

  Another nurse drapes a discreet cloth over the crash cart’s contents and leaves with it. The remaining nurse stays long enough to replace my blankets and check the IV line.

  Then it’s just me. And me.

  Gran materialises at my side, sedate now in the no-nonsense skirt and blouse she was buried in. We stand in silence, contemplating my body.

  “At least you’re alive,” says Gran.

  “For now.”

  But, really, why would anyone keep me alive? Down there I’m just a shell. Nobody has a clue what’s going on inside. Not even me. Maybe I’ll wake up and have the mental capacity of a gnat, or find myself trapped in a vegetative body with no way out. Maybe I’ll—

  “Maybe nothing.” Gran’s tone is crisp. “You’re here, you’re back, and that’s what counts.”

  “Is it? But I didn’t finish what I needed to do.” And Mum won’t fight for custody of Tess, and she’ll have to live with her murdering father and her whole life will be ruined.

  “I’m so glad you ignored the light.”

  “I didn’t. You barred—

  She coughs loudly, then widens her eyes in warning, indicating the corner.

  Oh. Creepy Guy. I’d forgotten about him.

  Gran drops her voice to a whisper. “He can’t prove it, and I’m not about to admit to it. Hearing, schmearing.”

  I frown. Hearing, as in telling-off?

  “Gran, is everything o—”

  She clears her throat, and with a nervous glance at Creepy Guy, speaks at normal volume. “That’s what I’m here to tell you, dear. I won’t be around for a while. I’ve been summonsed, and, well—” she shrugs “—when you’re summonsed you go. God catches up with us all in the end. Even the tax dodgers.” She gives a faint smile.

  “But are you—”

  “Don’t you worry about me.” She raises her hand, forestalling my question, then lowers her voice until I’m straining to hear. “I don’t regret a thing, and I’d do it all again.”

  “But—”

  “You’re my flesh and blood, Faith,” she says, her eyes soft. “I’d go to Hell and spit in the Devil’s own eye if it would give you a better shot at life.”

  I half-laugh, half-sob. She would too, feisty old coot. But I hope she hasn’t bitten off more than she can chew this time.

  “I love you, Gran. Thank you so much. For everything. But please—” it’s my turn to hide my words from Creepy Guy “—don’t end up in Hell, eh?”

  She chuckles. “I’ll try not to.”

  In my peripheral vision I see Creepy Guy stand and approach.

  “Ah,” says Gran. “Time’s up. ’Bye, darling. Wish me luck. Tell Tess I love her like chocolate.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Out in the corridor a crash team nurse is talking in low tones with a pale-faced Mum. “Yes, but she’s pulled through, Miss Osbourne. That’s the important thing. She’s not going down without a fight.”

  Nate watches from a distance, his eyes troubled as he scans Mum’s face.

  She brings a hand to her mouth and stifles a sob.

  Her tears spill and Nate, with a curse, strides to her side. “Is she . . .?”

  Mum looks up at Nate, her face collapsing in on itself, and maybe it’s a trick of the light but suddenly she looks small and fragile, like a Venetian glass statuette.

  Nate grabs her hand, his face stricken.

  A few feet away, Cynthia looks their way then back down at her cup, her expression unreadable. She doesn’t want to eavesdrop, I guess. Or maybe she does. I wish I knew what she was thinking.

  “It’s good news,” the nurse reassures him.

  Nate exhales. He looks skyward, rotates his shoulders, then smiles at Mum.

  Cynthia stands, holding her polystyrene cup so tightly it crushes in her hand.

  “Thank goodness for that,” she says, then walks off in the direction of the kitchen.

  “It was a close call,” continues the nurse. “A very close call. We’ll know more once we’ve run some tests, but for now Faith’s stable and that’s good news.”

  “Tests?” Mum frowns. “What tests?”

  The nurse chooses her words carefully. “Miss Osbourne, your daughter stopped breathing. She had to be resuscitated. In circumstances like this there is a chance of organ damage. We need to ass- . . .”

  Panicky static hisses in my ears, drowning out her words. Organ damage? I swallow convulsively. That’s not good. Even I know my body can’t survive without a functional kidney or liver or lung or whatever.

  My stomach drops. What if I’m brain damaged?

  No way. I mean, I feel fine. Just the same as always. Inconveniently outside my body, of course, but otherwise fine. Which means I’m fine, right?

  My heart slows to an ominous thunder. What if I can’t tell? What if I end up back in my body, with the brain of a six-month-old and no way out? What if I end up back in my body with a fully functional brain and a vegetative body?

  I couldn’t stand it.

  The thunder rolls, chug-a-thug-a chug-a-thug-a, loud and insistent in my ears.

  “Gran?” She’ll tell me what’s what.

  Silence.

  Oh. She’s gone to her scary Death Council thingie. I’m on my own.

  Crap.

  Sure, Gran can be a right royal pain in the butt. She invades my thoughts, has an opinion on everything, and it’s her way or the highway—but right here, right now, I’d give anything to have her back.

  What if they sentence her to Purgatory or Hell or some halfway house for renegade angels? She’ll be there for all eternity, and it’ll kill her—well, she’s dead already but it’ll kill her spirit—and whose fault will it be? Mine.

  “Yes,” the nurse is saying, “but immediate family only for now, I’m afraid. Faith needs to rest.”

  Nate’s expression is unreadable. A pulse pounds at his temple.

  Mum nods, blinks away her tears. “Can—can I see her now?”

  The nurse nods. “For a few minutes.”

  Mum looks at Nate, opens her mouth to speak, closes it again.

  “It’s okay.” Nate gives her a gentle push. “Go. She needs you. I’ll be here.”

  Mum nods, faces the door, straightens her tiny shoulders, and enters my room. The nurse quietly departs, her job done.

  Nate hovers outside my room. He pinches finger and thumb to the bridge of his nose. He mutters to himself. He sits, stands, paces back and forth, lolls against the wall, pushes himself upright, paces some more, and, oh my God, would he just be still?

  My forehead tingles and a quick glance confirms Mum is at my bedside, stroking the hair off my face. See? Even though it’s once removed, I
still feel. I’m alive.

  When she emerges, Nate’s immediately at her side. “Well?”

  Her voice wobbles. “She’s pale. Very pale.”

  She leans into him and his arms come around her. For a few moments they’re still, drawing strength from each other. I feel a bit left out, which is stupid because I’m the cause of all this angst.

  Mum straightens.

  “Well,” she says, trying for brisk and failing. “Tess will want to see her mum. I’ll go get her.”

  But there’s no need, because here comes Cynthia with Tess, full of overexcited chatter.

  “Mummy!” Tess spots me and runs the last few metres. “My mummy’s back, my mummy’s back!”

  Her excitement is contagious. I grin. “Sure am. Sorry I scared you.”

  “That’s okay.” She spins in a happy circle until she falls in a dizzy, laughing heap.

  Kids. Their emotions are like light switches, flicking from extreme to extreme with no time for in-between. It’s refreshing, and tiring.

  Tess stands on tippie-toes at my door, trying to see in.

  “Come on,” says Mum, “let’s go and give Mummy a kiss. Then I’ll take you home for dinner.”

  Nate frowns but says nothing. He doesn’t need to; Mum’s clearly received his message.

  She opens the door and ushers Tess into my room, then turns back to him.

  “I know, Nathan,” she says with a sigh. “I’m my own worst enemy. But today’s been hard on her too. She needs routines, now more than ever, and it’s down to me because Geoff won’t try to cross town until the traffic thins.”

  “What about Cynthia?”

  Mum pauses, then shakes her head. “It’s okay. I need the distraction.”

  “You do too much.”

  “Only because I want to.”

  He grunts.

  “What about you? You’re not immortal either, you know.” She softens her words with a smile. “You should take a break. Half an hour won’t hurt.”

  He eyeballs her.

  She stands her ground. “Go. You need it. I’ll ring you if anything changes.”