Dark Horse (21 page)

G
ood news and bad news.’ Ronald tepeed his fingers, abandoning his notepad and pen for a moment. ‘Bad news first . . . your request for day release has been declined.’

Sarah’s psychiatrist’s office overlooked the steep front entrance of the hospital grounds. The city skyline was off to the right and the green belt of riverside reserve lay below. To the left, suburbia staggered throughout the half-tamed hillsides. It was a hot day; cool, though, within the dimly lit, air-conditioned office. Ronald was wearing sandals, long loose pants and a short-sleeve shirt. He had a small earring in his left earlobe and wavy grey hair down to his shoulders. He was of that generation: once an activist and now anything but.

‘What are you feeling?’ His voice was lifted straight from the seventies too. Mellow as.

What was she feeling? Locked up, locked in, surrounded by people she couldn’t relate to and who she would never usually mix with, patients who had never ridden a horse or spent time in the mountains, or at least didn’t talk about it if they had, and nurses who might misconstrue any conversation but especially one that touched on
that
topic, report to Ronald that she was too preoccupied with Tansy and the ranges. But why wouldn’t she be missing both those things? Her time hospitalised was, perhaps, of some benefit – emotion didn’t leap from within Sarah like it used to. She could contain it. Therapy had given her borders; she had her own weather now, her very own climate within her. All the talking and sharing, the
working through
, it had an isolating effect; it had turned her into an island, or a mountain maybe? Better not use that analogy with Ronald.

‘I was expecting it,’ she said. ‘I’m disappointed; it’s okay though. It was always a long shot, we knew that.’

‘The panel’s concerns were all the ones we expected – it’s too close to Christmas Day, key things might trigger thoughts and feelings. The panel would prefer your first day release to be in a less significant month.
But
, now for the good news – in knocking back the day release the panel has shown their faith in another, major, way.’ He collected up the notepad and balanced it on his knee. Sarah watched his left-handed, awkward upside down way of writing. ‘They’ve moved forward your shift into an independent apartment.’ He circled something he had written and looked up. ‘You’re being taken off the ward, Sarah.’

She was wearing a summer dress and flat canvas shoes. Her hair was tied in a low ponytail and her face was free of make-up. Her emotions suddenly felt hard to contain. Excitement flooded through her, she shifted in her seat, struggled to control it.

‘How soon?’

‘They think it’s best you spend the rest of your time here with a degree of independence and accountability. You’ll be transferred across to the low security section next week. In time for Christmas.’ Ronald smiled while writing. ‘You’re allowed to be excited.’

Sarah covered her mouth to hide the excessive stretch of the grin across her face. ‘Holy shit,’ she said behind her palm.

‘Indeed. You’ve worked hard. You’ve impressed the review panel. It’s a huge vote of confidence. I agree with their decision of course. They’re hoping, we all are, that low security will be the perfect environment for you to become the strongest person you can be. You’ll have me and the unit staff, you’ll have the security of the grounds, and you’ll have your own space.’

‘I feel like crying.’ She was already, wiping her eyes.

‘I should tell you,’ Ronald said as he wrote, ‘it’s as much the times you break down that impress us, Sarah, as those times you process events calmly.’ He underlined the last line of whatever he had written. He looked up. ‘You should be very proud of your progress.’

Vera Hudson Mental Health Facility was made up of different buildings and self-contained units. As a patient of Ward C in the medium security building (the
cold zone
was how Sarah thought of it) the layout of the grounds and the general overall view of the facility hadn’t been made entirely clear to her. On her own Sarah had deduced how things worked, information gleaned from visitors and from listening to the staff talk amongst themselves. Ward C lay within the inner circle, sanctum (vacuum more like it), with two checkpoints to pass through, a couple of hoops to jump through, a few hurdles to clear on the way in and on the way out. In her ten months at the facility Sarah had never before walked the halls with Ronald. It was like being a primary school student marching beside the headmaster to the staffroom, about to get a behind-the-scenes look at the system. Sarah walked quickly to keep up; she was light-headed.

They walked down the long corridors, past the staff station, where a nurse buzzed them out through the first locked door. They entered another long corridor, this one lined with offices and rooms labelled Utility 1, Utility 2, then on to another locked door, through a metal detector manned by an armed security guard, and into the Ward C visiting room. The area resembled a nursing home common room. It smelt like one too. There was an assortment of armchairs and two-seater couches, and in them a scattering of dazed, poorly groomed patients, stale air hovering above their heads, their visitors like energiser bunnies in comparison: flushed cheeks, glowing skin, silky hair, talking fast to fill the uncomfortable pauses, their bright eyes drawn to the windows, and occasionally up to the security cameras in the corners of the ceiling. A decorated Christmas tree sat beside the fireplace. The fresh pine needle smell offered some respite from the overpowering scent of the ward.

Through another locked door and another metal detector, past another armed security guard, was the foyer. Benefactor Vera Hudson must have squirreled away a fair stash of cash. The foyer was grandiose. There were marble columns, and a small indoor waterfall above a fishpond. Beneath a skylight in the middle of the foyer was a large slab of marble and on it a gilded chariot pulled by gilded horses. The patients were the chariots being drawn forward by the mighty steed, the hospital? Sarah guessed that was the story behind it. An image of horses pulling a chariot was stencilled in gold on the glass doors. The young men behind the reception desk wore dark jackets with the motif stitched in gold thread on their pockets, looking as though, behaving as though, they were hotel lobby attendants.

Ronald took Sarah across the foyer to a plain white door. He swiped a card for access. Immediately Sarah noticed a change in the air – entering into this section of the hospital the atmosphere was
real
, the air was oxygenated and it moved. Rooms they passed had windows, ones that could open. Ronald’s card swiped again, this time into a small foyer, the entrance to a different wing, with a scaled-down model of the glided chariot and horses on the desk.

‘You must be Sarah,’ the large woman behind the counter said, and she clapped her hands excitedly beneath her chin like a child.

‘This is Julia,’ Ronald introduced. ‘Julia is the mother hen over here.’

‘Welcome, Sarah, the team is really looking forward to you joining us.’

Ronald turned Sarah around to face the glass sliding doors leading to the outside. Through the doors Sarah could see a patch of lawn and steps down to a car park. It was enclosed within a tall wire fence. There was a hut down by the boom gate.

‘You’ll need to explain to your visitors that the checks to this wing are as rigorous, if not more so, than those into the main wards. Your visitors are able to bring you clothes, food, household items, so searches have to be thorough.’

‘What are the visiting hours?’

‘Ten till ten,’ Julia said.

‘All day?’

‘And one overnight visitor is allowed once a fortnight.’

‘Overnight.’

‘They all like the idea of overnight visitors,’ Julia laughed.

‘Can’t blame them.’

Ronald took Sarah around to the far side of the reception desk to a bank of four glass doors. Julia buzzed them out through the end door. Etched into the heavy glass was
Independent Apartment 4.
Printed in white on a blue plastic plaque was
SARAH LEHMAN.

Sarah stepped through the doorway and out into the heat of the day, the bracing hit of heat reminded her of leaving airport terminals, that shock of reality after time spent in air-conditioned planes and departure lounges, the plane trip forgotten in that instant, as though a switch was flicked and life was given the green light to recommence. Above Sarah a pair of mating dragonflies buzzed beneath the tin roof. Hot wind pushed rose petals across the concrete at her feet. She was standing within a caged-in and covered area, a pen-like laneway to her apartment. In front of them, a few short metres away, was a blue door with the number four on it. Hers was the end apartment in a line of four.

Independent living? Or one-room lodgings in an outside brick barracks? Not that she was in any position to complain. The air, the summer heat, the dragonflies and the glimpse of sky, those things were in no way disappointing. Life was so close, within reach and coming at her through the wire. Freeway sounds filtered across the hospital grounds. Birdsong was lively. Ronald was trying his best to put a positive spin on the caged entrance and poky door.

‘You have access to your own garden and vegetable plot, and from there you have the ability to walk unescorted through a large area of the grounds. I know you’ll enjoy that.’

Her unit door buzzed open. Sarah looked behind her. A mounted camera was fixed on her and Ronald.

‘Your visitors are free to bring you videos, music and books. Or you can order through a mobile library service.’ He bent down and picked up a newspaper that was sitting on the outside doormat. ‘And you get the paper delivered every day. How about that?’

‘Spoilt,’ she said.

Inside the door he felt for the light switch. There was only one window that she could see and the curtain was pulled across. The room was hot and dark. It smelt of bleach and the inside of a vacuum cleaner, as though staff had exited not five minutes before. A single globe in the centre of the room pressed weak light around the space.

Sarah had a kitchen bench, a stove, a sink, a kettle, a microwave, a table, a double bed. She had a TV mounted on the wall, and through a narrow door she had a shower and a toilet. There was no back door. She went across and opened the curtain. Sun poured in. Sarah squinted and smiled at the intensity of it. Her skin had grown pale; it sucked in the rays. There were no bars on the window, only flywire – heavy duty and screwed into place. Sarah pushed up the bottom window sash. It was a novel experience to do such a thing; it made her laugh.

‘I’m never going to shut this.’

‘There’s an air conditioner,’ Ronald offered, not understanding what she meant.

Outside the window was a long drop down to a bare, locked yard. Deterrents were everywhere, but they were just that. If she really wanted to she could cut through the wire, jump from the window, find a way out of the yard, escape into the grounds, dodge cameras, climb the high perimeter fence, get lucky and outrun alarms – but why would she do that? Freedom was a home straight away. A few months, a year, of this and she could leave without ever being dragged back and locked up, dosed up, grilled.

Ronald put the newspaper down on the table. ‘I think they’ve left enough here for a cup of tea. We’ll have one and go through procedure.’

While he filled the kettle Sarah continued appraising her new home. An electric heater was mounted on the wall above the bed. The only hanging space she could see was a folded clotheshorse next to the window. An area of open shelving looked to be her drawers and cupboards. Cups and plates and bowls were displayed on an open shelf. Knives and forks were in a see-through storage container by the sink. Vera Hudson Mental Health Facility wasn’t big on its patients having cupboard space, drawers, boxes, chests or any private places. Everything had to be exhibited.

‘How long are patients usually in here for?’

‘It varies.’

‘But this is the final step?’

‘There are no final steps, Sarah. We’ve talked about this – it’s an ongoing process. You’ll continue treatment outside of the facility. You might find this unit a bigger adjustment than you imagine. You’ll be cooking for yourself, washing your own clothes, organising your own schedule. Interaction and involvement with your neighbours is required, day releases will begin – all that can be very daunting after the structure of the ward. You’ll need, as always, to be honest and open about what you’re feeling, and share any uncertainties.’

Sarah tuned him out. There was too much to look at out the window, too much enjoyment in the sticky heat of the day and in the sweat springing up on her skin.

B
rody didn’t limp anymore. There was a crosshatch of scarring on his kneecap from all the operations it had taken to achieve this. He smiled as he closed the apartment door, and took, from behind his back, a small bowl covered in gladwrap.

‘As promised.’

His face was polished with a thin layer of sweat. He was wearing shorts and a shirt, canvas slip-ons on his feet.

‘I wasn’t sure if I’d get any. Wasn’t it on the proviso you got down off the mountain “without a fuss”?’

‘Figured you might argue the definition of a “fuss”.’

She was sitting on the edge of her bed. She was wearing a red cotton dress and black sandals. She’d done her hair, put on make-up, painted her toenails. It had been a hot Christmas Day of old, like those she remembered as a child. Lauriston would be on high alert. Fire-spotter choppers would be sweeping the ranges.

As well as the plum pudding he had a present for her. He put the bowl and the gift down on the table.

‘Jeez, how good is this?’ he said looking around.

Finishing touches in the room made all the difference. Sarah had picked flowers and put them in a vase on her bedside table, she’d bitten the bullet and begged her father to bring in new bed linen and towels. Julia had given her a colourful mat and some pot plants. One of the other independent patients had given her a welcoming present of a set of yellow and green tea towels and a big yellow glass bowl. Brody glanced up into each corner of the ceiling.

‘Nothing in here? Are they watching you?’

‘No.’

He stuck his head in the bathroom. ‘Did you go nuts the first night and run round naked?’

‘Going nuts and running around naked is frowned upon in here.’

‘Yeah,’ he laughed. ‘What did you do?’

‘Watched TV.’

‘I know what I would have done.’ He arched his eyebrow. He went to the open window and touched the wire. ‘This is more like what I thought you’d go into. It was like they weren’t ever gonna let you out of the ward. How anyone gets better in there I’ll never know.’

He came and sat down beside her. She could smell sunscreen on him, mixed with sweat and the grime of the freeway. His clothes were creased from the drive. Too hot for direct contact, he touched her dress-covered thigh instead, brushed the backs of his fingers over the fabric: a hint of what he’d like to do to her bare skin if the day wasn’t forty degrees.

‘Sorry I’m late. God, you look good.’ Again he checked for security cameras. ‘You sure they’re not watching us?’

‘They have to say if we’re being filmed or recorded.’

He grinned and leaned in.

It was nothing like the hello and goodbye kisses they’d shared on the ward. There was no use pretending they hadn’t been waiting for and anticipating this. Also, Sarah hadn’t had sex since the last time they’d kissed this way. Her libido had never before posed such a problem. With the exception of those medicated first few months at the hospital, abstinence had been right up there on her Top Five Drawbacks of Living Under Lock and Key (a list she’d privately devised, not one of the many Ronald had suggested she draw up).

When Brody pulled back he murmured, ‘I might have to have a quick shower.’

‘Yeah, you might.’

‘Open my present first. You’ll like it.’

She could feel his gaze on her as she stood and walked to the table, he was taking in the fall of her hair, her shoulders, her dress, down to her feet, back up again. He continued staring while she opened the fridge and put the plum pudding in beside the custard and cream. Her refrigerator shelves were stocked with all the usual Christmas Day staples – wrapped ham, slices of roast turkey, salad things.

‘Can I get you something to drink? Apple cider?’

‘Sounds good . . . Hey, this feels strange doesn’t it?’

In the short period since he’d arrived the sun had dropped in the sky and a cool westerly had started blowing in through the open window, freshening the room; shades of orange shone through onto the small square table and basic kitchen. The cramped conditions and isolation beyond the window felt familiar.

‘Mountain-ish somehow?’

‘It does.’

Sarah put his drink down and picked up her present.

‘Don’t just rip into that,’ he said getting to his feet. He came across and took it from her, indicated that she sit. He went down on one knee in front of her. For a heart-stopping moment she thought he was about to propose. But he said, ‘Merry Christmas, Sarah,’ and he held out the gift.

Going by the size and feel of the present, she was expecting a Nina Simone CD, and, once unwrapped, she saw that it was.

‘Open it.’

But the gift was more than music. Brody had used the CD case to hide pictures inside.

‘I wasn’t sure if they’d let me bring you photos of her, so I thought I better smuggle them in.’

The words
of her
were enough to have Sarah’s heart drop sickeningly low before soaring up. She could hardly bring herself to look at the photos in case she’d got it wrong and they weren’t what she was thinking.

They were.

Her head swam. Sarah lost her grip on time and space for a moment. When she blinked Brody had moved closer, sitting beside her, putting the photographs in a line, beaming, ducking his head to look right into her face. She continued to feel as much sickness as excitement.

‘It’s okay, Sarah, you can look – it’s her, she’s alive.’

Laid out on the table was a series of eight photographs, taken on trail cam, images of Tansy. Sarah shook her head. Her heart felt weak and fluttery, awfully similar to the way it trembled a second or two before a bout of vomiting. Her skin goosed and chilled.

‘I’ve found her,’ Brody said.

In the first photo all there was to see was Tansy’s nose, then each picture captured more of her, two images detailed her entire body, before she began disappearing again. In the last photo all you could see was her rump and tail. Sarah breathed open-mouthed.

The best photo, with Tansy’s whole body in frame, Sarah lifted up. She didn’t want to risk marking it by kissing it, so she placed it against her chest, against the fabric of her dress, and she pressed the image to her heart.

‘I’ve had these haunted images of her . . . suffering in the bush. They’ve eaten away at me. It’s killed me more than the idea of her dead – that she might have suffered and been afraid. And I don’t have to think like that anymore.’ For a moment she let sentimentality get the better of her.

Brody hugged her. He kissed the top of her head. ‘By the looks of it she’s not lame at all.’ Overcome too, he leaned away and took a sip of his apple cider. ‘A bit matted-up and thin. That’s the leg closest to us.’ He pointed to the photo Sarah was holding. ‘It looks healed to me.’

‘Where were these taken?’

‘In a gully right over, between Skinny Ridge and Rangers Road. These weren’t taken on any of my cams. Everyone’s been looking for her. I haven’t been telling you about how many sightings there have been because I didn’t want to keep getting your hopes up. I wanted to wait until there’s proof and . . .’ he bumped her with his shoulder, ‘this is it. Can you believe it?’

‘Not really, no.’

Down at the bottom of the pictures was the date. They’d been taken a few weeks before.

‘Today seemed the right day to give them to you.’

Sarah looked up from the photos. She wiped her tears. ‘Thank you, Brody. You know what it means.’

He thirstily finished his drink and wiped his mouth. ‘God, she’s such a bloody trouper, isn’t she? A true legend. When the guy said he’d captured images of her, I couldn’t wait – I drove up to his place that night, telling myself it wouldn’t be her, knowing I’d be gutted if it wasn’t.’

‘What will happen next?’

‘I’ll get a crew together and we’ll track her. I’ve got a vet mate who says he’ll come with us and dart her if she’s become too wild to catch. Then we’ll wait until she comes to, and walk her out. I know you don’t want her airlifted. I’ve already put the word out to some guys I know. They’re keen to help. Because it’s Christmas it might take —’

‘You can’t get a crew together, there can’t be a group of people who know.’

‘Don’t worry, these are good guys.’

‘It has to be just you.’

‘They’ll be careful with her. We’re not going to be storming in rounding her up rough or anything like that. I’ll make sure it’s quiet and calm and organised. She’s not going to let me walk up to her and throw a rope over her neck, not after a year out there alone. We’ll have to carefully block her off.’

Sarah rested her fingers on the table and ran them along the line of the photos. ‘We can’t have any other people involved. We can’t have everyone knowing she’s alive.’

‘I don’t think you realise how many of the hunters and trappers are behind you. They’re on your side, Sarah. The mountain, they’ve started calling it Black Mare Mountain.’

‘But Dean’s family will claim her.’

Brody opened his hands soothingly. ‘I should have said – if they do that, I’m going to buy her from them. Legitimate. You don’t have to worry about that.’

‘They’re not going to sell her to you.’

‘I’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse.’

Sarah pushed her chair around to face him. ‘No offer will be enough. They despise me, Brody. As if they’re going to let me have her. If it comes down to a fight, they’ll get her. There’s no way to prove that she’s mine. That’s why Dean was able to take her. It will be my word against theirs, and no one will take me seriously, not now. If the Barnards don’t claim her, maybe the stud will. They can, they’ve got her pedigree papers. I have no documentation saying they gave her to me.’

His gaze drifted as he thought about it. He went across to put his empty glass in the sink. ‘There are a couple of guys I trust. We’ll do it quietly. No one will know she’s caught. I’m not going to find her only to lose her. Don’t worry, Sarah.’ He perched on the edge of the kitchen bench. ‘If the mountain is going to be named after her, it’s probably only right that everyone thinks she’s still running around up there.’ He smiled. ‘We’ll see if the sightings increase or decrease once we’ve got her.’

‘Could just you and Jamie do it?’

Brody lowered his head and looked across from beneath his brow. ‘Asking Jamie to go into the Mortimer Ranges with me would be . . . pushing it.’

‘Have you told him?’

‘He knew while we were up there.’

‘He knew? He knew about the affair?’

‘Those messages and missed calls that came through on my phone, before the hut collapsed, not all of them were overflowing with love and concern for me.’

‘How did he find out?’

‘He worked it out. Kirsty had been the only one who knew where I’d gone. When she couldn’t get me on the phone she thought the worst. She had to tell them I was up there. All the family twigged I think. Even after the cops rang and told them I was alive and trapped, Jamie kept on hounding her.’

‘But you haven’t said anything to me about it?’

‘I haven’t had a chance. On the ward there was always someone breathing down my neck. They grill you about what to say and what not to say. Telling you that my brother knew about the affair and that he wanted to kill me, didn’t seem like appropriate “ward” conversation.’

‘He took it hard?’

‘Much better than he could have, that’s for sure. He’s openly angry, and that’s gotta be better than sad. Mum thinks it helped too that it was second fiddle to me being trapped; it took some of the sting out of it. It was a pretty intense time for them. Media were camped outside the farm. Each day we weren’t rescued the story got bigger. He’s amazing, Sarah. He kept it together at the one time when he could have really lost it. You saw him at the trial. He came for me, knowing what I’d done. He was
there
, you know? I think I said to you once that he’s not strong; well he’s strong all right. I think I said that he’s not like a brother.’ Brody swung his head from side to side. ‘How much more brotherly can you get? I hurt him, he can’t forgive me, he does wanna punch my head in, but he loves me.’

‘You’re lucky to have him.’

Brody came across and sat back at the table. He positioned his chair around to face the room, like hers. ‘I told myself I understood his illness – that it was an illness, not his fault. But I think a part of me always wondered if he let himself spiral down, if he did it to get attention. There’s no questioning it now. He’s a stronger and better person than I’ll ever be. I don’t know how I’ll live with myself if he and Kirsty don’t make it.’

Last slanted rays of sunlight were fading. The room was growing dark. Lawn sprinklers had sprung to life in the hospital grounds. Christmas carols were playing somewhere nearby.

‘I feel like maybe you feel,’ Brody said, ‘I did something, I made this terrible mistake, and somehow I get a second chance.’

She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. ‘I’m not sure what I did compares.’

‘Jamie helped you too,’ Brody said quietly. He glanced around for cameras again. ‘He told me how to word things.’

Sarah sighed. ‘What does your family think of me?’

‘I told them, Sarah, everything you did. And if not for you the affair with Kirsty would have gone off like a bomb. Or it would have stayed hidden and been a cancer in our family. Mum’s said as much – you saved us. You saved me, that’s for sure.’

‘Brody, you don’t have to do this. You fulfilled your promises. Don’t prolong it for my sake. You don’t have to ease me down gently or anything like that. I know we can’t have anything real.’

‘Can’t we?’

‘I took a gun to the stables.’

‘I know that.’

‘If I think about that,
I
start to wonder about myself. There are nights I lie awake thinking – how many insects were there? How many times did I call you Sid? Was the verdict right?’

‘Believe someone who knows, Jamie says it’s the times he questions himself that he knows he’s thinking straight. You question yourself all the time; you did it up the mountain, you’re doing it now.’

‘But the things I did? I couldn’t remember for a while. I wasn’t thinking straight. I packed a gun and tablets with a
picnic
 . . . Half of me knew and half of me didn’t.’