Peeling the Onion (19 page)

But backstroke I can do! I've done three laps and Brian says I have to stop, but I could do more if he let me. 'Next week,' he says. 'Don't want to overdo it too soon.'

Once I'm out of the water my ankle hurts so much I can barely hobble to the changing room, but as I sit on the floor of the shower stall, too wobbly to stand, I feel fantastic. I've never liked swimming much, but I think I could learn to.

Martin's pleased with my English work. 'You obviously made the right decision, dropping the other subjects,' he says, 'but your concentration's improved too. Life's looking up, is it?'

'You could say that.'

'Oh God, romance! I should have known. Anyway, if you can get your mind out of the gutter for a moment—' 'It might be a very spiritual romance, Martin!'

'With that look on your face? Anyway, have a look at this—you're not the only one who's been working hard lately.' He tosses a fat manila folder onto the table—'Six Months at Sea,' by Martin Weiss.

'You've finished!'

'I was wondering ...'
(Martin, shy and embarrassed?)
'um, would you read it before I send it to a publisher . . . tell me if it sounds all right?'

'I'd love to.'

'I was thinking, too—this might be the sort of thing you could consider for the future.'

'Round-the-world sailing?'

'Very funny. Editing—books or magazines. You've got a good ability to analyse stories; a reasonable feel for words—and editors don't need to run around much, I wouldn't think.'

'But I don't really like reading!' 'It was just a thought.'

'Did you start caring about me because you felt sorry for me?' We're on the track by the river, the same one we took when I first got a stick, but whether it's holding hands or the orthotic in my shoe, it doesn't seem nearly as rough today.

'No.'

'You didn't feel sorry for me?'

'Of course I did! I'd have had to be inhuman not to. But the first time I saw you, in that split second before I registered the mess you were in, it was as if I recognised you—nothing to do with when you were twelve, just a feeling of "so there she is", like something I'd been waiting for. Then I noticed all the rest of it, and realised how awful it was and how you hated it—but that was nothing to do with the way I felt in that first instant.'

I wish that I could say something as wonderful back to him, but it wouldn't be true. I didn't recognise him; I just thought he was nice. And I felt comfortable with him. Though I used to think about his eyes, and his voice, and his hands . . .

We've reached the log; far enough to sit down. 'Do you want to know when I first . . . when I should have known how I felt?'

'Please,' he says, so softly, so gently, that it twists inside me, and I have to kiss him before I can go on.

'The first day you picked me up at school. You looked so sexy . . . ' I felt unbelievably happy . . . '

'And you still persisted in going out with Hayden. And I encouraged you.'

'You were noble.'

'I was an idiot.'

'We were both idiots.'

'We'll have to make up for our mistakes somehow.' Mid-September's not bad weather for a barbecue, warm enough for people in jeans and windcheaters and still too cold for mosquitoes and flies. The park behind the dojo actually belongs to the football club, but the gas barbecues and wooden picnic tables are so convenient that we think of them as ours.
(Thought
not
think.
This isn't mine any more; this is the past.)

Luke's with me—because I like being with him; not because I've got anything to prove. Well, maybe a tiny bit. Whatever way you look at it, my new life is not that great—I might as well show off the one good bit of it.

Everything's a bit stiff at first; I haven't seen most of these people for nearly eight months, and nobody knows what to say. A couple of guys, sounding slightly amazed, tell me that I look great; one's honest enough to say that when he'd heard I had to quit he'd thought I'd look worse. 'But it's brain damage, is it?' he asks innocently. 'I guess that doesn't show.'

Luke squeezes my hand as I mumble defensively about my neck and ankle.
(So what am I saying
—
it's okay to break bones, but somehow immoral to bump your head? As if it was my
choice?) 'But I guess the head injury didn't help,' I add, and quickly escape to get a drink.

Luke thinks I need a kiss more than a coke.

'What's that for?'

'Being brave.'

'I handled that really badly! Why do I have to feel sick whenever anyone says the words "brain damage" ? The poor guy didn't want to know all that stuff about my neck and my foot—he was just trying to be polite!'

'Tough,' says Luke. 'People shouldn't ask heavy questions if they don't want the answers.'

Sensai gives me a hug; I'm introducing Luke as I see Hayden pull up in his car and sit for a moment as if deciding whether or not to get out.

'He's come back to karate?'

'Coincidence, isn't it? I phoned and told him about this—said it could be a farewell for him too, if he couldn't make it back. Next Tuesday, there he was at training as if he'd never been away.'

He's so obviously pleased with himself that I can't help laughing. 'I'm glad.'

'Best thing for him. You're obviously getting on with your life; he ought to do the same. Now, speaking of getting on with things, we've got a little presentation to make.'

I hate this. Everyone stops talking and gathers around while Sensai hands me a small, heavy, wrapped present and makes a speech about my skill, my contribution to the club, how sorry they are to see me go. He's a bit stilted; the phrases are cliched—and suddenly my eyes fill with their treacherous tears and I'm incredibly moved. I've always felt like I'd snuck out of karate—quit like a yellow belt who can't take the discipline—and this speech, this gift-wrapped leather purse, have given an honourable ending to what was one of the most important things in my life.

Oh, God, they want me to say something too. Now I do hate it. Say thanks—for the present, the evening; for five years of training and companionship. Then incredibly, I hear myself add, 'I've just been through the toughest year of my life, and knowing that I'll never get my black belt has been one of the hardest things in that. But even if it wasn't my choice to leave karate, I'm lucky enough to have found something else' (Hayden winces, and I stumble on quickly, because that wasn't what I meant); 'I'm taking up Tai Chi.'

Luke lifts an eyebrow but nods as if he'd known all along. It's not till we're in the car that he asks if I just made that up so no one would feel sorry for me.

'No; I really want to. It's just—I liked the competition in karate; I really liked knowing I was best; winning.'

Luke unbuckles his seat belt, leans over and kisses me, long and sweet. 'Who won that?' he asks.

'What?'

'Not everything good's a competition,' he says smugly, and starts the car.

C
HAPTER
15

Y
ou don't exactly know me—I'm the driver of the car that hit yours last January. Trevor Jones.'

The phone slips out of my hand.

'I guess it's a bit late,' he goes on, 'but I thought maybe I should apologise—you don't know how bad I feel. I have nightmares about it.'

My voice comes out in a croak, a cross between a whisper and a cry. 'So do I.'

This seems to encourage him.
Doesn't he realise that
he's
my nightmare?
He picks up speed, 'I went to see this psychologist . . . anyway, I figured I might get over it if I met you. If you felt you could.'

This is too much! It's not fair; it's way too much!
'I don't know.' Damn, I'm crying again, and he'll be able to tell. I don't want him to know but I can't talk, my voice is gulpy. And I'm remembering how I felt last time I saw him; just talking to him now and I'm shaking, heart pounding, cold and sick to my stomach.
But I don't
have
to take it.
'I don't think I can. I'm sorry.'

'Oh. Yeah, okay, no worries. Can I leave you my number, in case you change your mind?'

My brain's so numb I write the number down obediently, and don't tear it into tiny pieces until I've hung up.

Trevor Jones wants me to solve his nightmares! What about me—I'm supposed to be the victim here! And maybe I used to think I was strong, but that's one thing the accident's taught me—I'm not nearly as strong as I thought. There are some things I just can't do, and this is one of them.

'What an unbelievable bloody nerve!' Dad explodes. 'Let me speak to him next time he tries to harass you!'

'He wasn't harassing me, Dad! He was trying to say he was sorry.'

I think I've seen my father rant and rave more in the last nine months than in the whole rest of my life, but this time he's really lost it—watery eyes, pinched nostrils and his face fading from grey to white, as if all the blood is being syphoned off by hate.

'Nearly a year later and he suddenly reckons he's
sorry?
Does he think a bunch of roses is going to fix what he did to you?' He slams out of the room.

'Why can't Dad let me deal with my problems myself?'

'He feels so helpless,' Mum says apologetically. 'Somehow as a parent you think you're always going to be able to protect your children.'

'When he acts like that I feel as if I'm supposed to protect him!

He looked like he was going to have a heart attack!'

Luckily Jen phones before war breaks out between Mum and me as well. She listens more calmly than Dad.

'It might be good,' she says cautiously. 'Talk about facing your fears! But you'd want to be feeling pretty together to start with or you could just freak out—or knowing you,
freeze
out—so busy making sure you didn't get hurt that you wouldn't feel anything at all and the whole thing would be wasted.'

What can you say to a friend who knows you that well?

'But if you could do it, it'd be an incredibly powerful experience.'

'To tell you the truth, Jen, I've had about enough powerful experiences lately.'

She ignores that. 'I know you're not religious, but forgiving might be a very healing thing to do—you might get more out of it than he does.'

'I've tried bargaining; it doesn't work. There's no one up there handing out happy face stickers for every good deed.'

'Okay; so it's more complicated than that—but it's not as simple as you think either.'

I figure Luke will agree with Jenny. But my clear-eyed, philosophical, what's-the-worst-that-can-happen man is afraid for me and almost as angry as my father. 'It'd be different if
you'd
decided you needed to face him,' he keeps saying. 'Why should you sort out
his
nightmares?'

We're sitting on the bench in the back garden, as close as two people can sit, with his arm around me and my hand resting on his thigh. Funny how comforting it is to touch each other, even when we're not being passionate. And it lets you know what's being said beneath the words, as if another layer of meaning seeps through our bodies and straight to our hearts, so that when I say I don't think I could handle it and Luke adds, 'You've been through enough!' the other level is saying that it's time to forget all this junk from the past and just get on with our lives. But there's another layer even below that, a sad, desperate layer where we both know that Jenny's right and no matter how horrible it is, I've got to deal with that stuff if I'm ever going to be free of it.

But not right now. Right now there's the kaleidoscope of tulips swaying in the breeze, the stubbled line of Luke's jaw and the warm fresh smell of him when I bury my head in his shoulder. The past can wait till I'm ready.

The last trace of yellow has disappeared from my breasts. If I stand naked in front of my mirror now I see a tall slim girl with small, neat white boobs and slightly bony hips—not 'Sun and Surf' material, but nothing to be ashamed of. I don't think anyone who happened to see them would scream in horror any more.

'We've got to talk about next year,' Luke says, as we go out the back gate and down the path to the river. A shiver runs through me; he sounds so solemn, the words so ominous—and feeling the tremor, he squeezes my hand gently and pulls me closer to his side. 'Idiot. It's nothing bad.'

But it is. He's decided to do massage therapy. It's a part-time course in Melbourne for thirty months.

'That's three years!' I feel as if my world has ended; I can't even remember the claustrophobia that swamped me when Hayden wanted to stay in Yarralong next year; now all I want is for Luke to do the same thing. 'Are we breaking up?'
So that's why it's called breaking up, because it tears you in two, shatters your heart and mind and body into tiny pieces.

'I won't go if it means that,' he says, pulling me down to sit on the ground beside him, and I'm staring into the river without seeing anything but he's cupping my face in his hands, turning me gently round to face him. 'I love you, Anna! But I've got to get on with the rest of my life too. And since I've met you I've started to believe that maybe I could accomplish something more than a few hours in your mum's nursery.'

'What about taking me to physio?'—which I meant to be a joke, but he answers the desperation and the unsaid words, which are not about going to physio, but the time in between school and appointments, when we used to have coffee and talk, except now we skip the coffee and sometimes the talk.

'It's part-time,' he says, 'I'll only be away three days a week. And it's just a year till you'll be down there too.'

I'm snatched up in a wave of bitterness, hurled down and swamped by it. It's not just a year of my life that's been stolen, but a year of Luke's
—
because instead of being at uni, together in Melbourne . . .

'We mightn't have been together,' he says quietly. 'If all this hadn't happened we mightn't ever have met again.'

'We would have!'
I don't know which is worse
—
thinking that we wouldn't have met, or being grateful to the accident.

We're lying on the bank now, his arm under me; my neck's cramping but I'm discussing the future with the man I want to spend it with and I'm not in the mood for pain to interrupt. But Luke sees, and starts to gently massage the corner between my right shoulder and neck. The rigid muscles begin to melt under his fingers. 'That's so good . . . are you doing massage therapy because of me?'