Trust (31 page)

‘What, darling? What did you say?’ Urgently, ‘What did she
say
?’

But Stella-Jean was back walking along the velvet dark road in Bali, toward the sound of the gamelan.
Tomorrow I’ll find Putu. I’m supposed to be meeting Putu. She won’t mind that I’m late
.

‘
We be of one blood, thou and I
.’

She was kind of surprised, at first, to be listening to
The Jungle Book
here, but then on second thoughts it made sense. The stories were set in India, and Bali had so many ties with India: all that Ramayana stuff, and Hanuman the Monkey King rescuing Sita. They loved stories with animals and adventures, and they loved kids, of course, so naturally they’d like the stories of Mowgli and his wolf brothers, Baloo the bear, and the elephants. Someone was reading from it now, aloud, here in Putu’s workshop, to entertain all the girls who were busy sewing.

The storyteller’s voice stopped. ‘No, keep going,’ Stella-Jean said, but someone else had come into the shop. They wanted her to do something – couldn’t they see she was busy?

Numbers … This pushy person was asking her to count. A stock-take? Obligingly, Stella-Jean started counting, standing by the racks and flicking through. Nyoman, Putu’s sister, had looped the hangers together in groups of ten. Wow, look how many garments have been completed! Thirty, forty, fifty … Oh, she was very happy with these designs …

‘Keep trying, Stella-Jean,’ the voice said. ‘One, two: what comes after three?’

Three?
What an idiot! Surely they could see that the rack was full? Three … three … Well, if they wanted her to count to three. ‘Satu, dua, tiga,’ she told them.

‘What did you say, sweetheart?’ Mum’s voice? Hooray, Mum had made it here too! Stella-Jean opened her eyes, smiled a welcome at her.

‘Look! Look!’ Mum cried. Look at what? Stella-Jean tried to turn her head but it seemed stuck, somehow, or too heavy, or … She looked around as much as she could without moving her head. She could see Mum, and other people too. How come she wasn’t in Putu’s workshop? Maybe she was in the house they rented, in the village. Where was Finn?

‘Where’s Finn?’ she asked, and her mother’s face loomed large. Too large to take in; Stella-Jean closed her eyes again. Finn would be safe here, he would be happy. No one would give Finn a hard time in Bali.

Ow, ow, ow!
The Balinese were expert at giving massages, but gee, sometimes they were too hard. Usually they asked you if it was okay, but sometimes you had to say.

‘Too hard,’ Stella-Jean told the person who was lifting her leg, rubbing, hurting. ‘Too hard!’

Why on earth was she even having a massage right now, when she’d been — what had she been doing? She’d been meeting with the girls who were making the new flower brooches, that was it.

‘Larissa! Can you come here? I think I got a little response from our girl.’

The Balinese liked
Winnie the Pooh
, too, apparently, and
The Hobbit
. Oh! Maybe Mum had brought them with her, all the old talking books Stella-Jean had listened to since she was a kid. That would explain it. Stella-Jean looked at her mother, sitting there beside the bed, drawing, wiping away a tear now and again. Why was Mum crying?

‘Mum? Why are you sad?’

Susanna’s face kind of leapt open and she jerked closer.

‘Stella-Jean, do you see me? You do, don’t you!’

She was calling for a nurse, saying, ‘She was looking at me, really looking at me. She tried to say something, I’m sure she did!’

Tried
to say something? What, had Mum gone deaf?
Maybe I was talking in Indonesian, I’ve been speaking that so much lately.
Stella-Jean tried to reassure her mother in English that everything was okay and there was no need to be sad, just because she was busy … But her eyes got too heavy, and she had to close them again.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Susanna slumped listlessly in the chair. ‘I’ve got the flu,’ she told her GP, known to the whole family as Doctor Gillian. ‘I’ve had it for weeks, and it’s just getting worse.’

Doctor Gillian listened patiently as Susanna described her symptoms: aches, lethargy, sore eyes, no appetite. ‘How are you sleeping now?’ she asked.

‘Okay, if I take one of those tablets. But I don’t like to do that too often.’

Doctor Gillian nodded. ‘Susanna,’ she said, ‘you’ve been feeling like this for … some weeks now?’ Susanna nodded agreement. ‘Since the accident?’

‘I suppose so,’ she agreed reluctantly.

‘I don’t think you have the flu, Susanna.’

Don’t talk about the ‘grief process’
.
Please don’t
.

‘We’ll examine you, do some blood tests if you like, but I think the symptoms you’re experiencing are probably all part of your grief process.’ Doctor Gillian’s smile was full of sympathy, and Susanna was shocked at how irritated she felt by it. By all the sympathy, all the kindness. Yesterday when she got home from the hospital, there’d been yet another white box on the verandah, another splendid cake left by Jo from the book group, and Susanna had felt the urge to kick it to bits.

‘People have been so kind,’ she said carefully. ‘Incredibly kind. Over these past few weeks I’ve had cards and flowers and offers of help from people I hardly know.’ She was looking at her hands, holding each other in her lap. ‘This woman I used to play tennis with, Wendy, I always thought she was quite a hard nut, but she called me and she said, “You’ll find people want to help. My advice is, say yes to everything, it’s so much easier.” So my freezer’s full of casseroles and my garden got weeded and Seb has people driving him to physio, and I’ve got a pile of books this high —’ she lifted one hand almost to chin height ‘— on bereavement and spirituality and bad things happening to good people. And sometimes – I’m sorry, Gillian, but sometimes I feel like if I hear or read the words “grief process” one more time, I’m going to scream.’

‘I understand,’ said Doctor Gillian, and her smile became even kinder and more sympathetic.

No, you don’t.
‘I just don’t feel like my grief is a process,’ Susanna said. ‘It’s part of my
life
. I don’t want to get over it! My son
is
injured, my daughter
is
in a coma, my mother
is
dead. I feel like saying, “Leave me alone, let me wallow in it.” If I get over it, do you know what that means? It means my mother will be
gone
.’ She touched her hand to her chest as she said this, over her heart, and kept it there for some seconds.
Is there anything left in there?
she wondered.

Gillian wasn’t smiling any more. She listened, and thought, and tapped a pencil. Then she asked Susanna whether she had discussed these feelings with Gerry.

‘No,’ said Susanna flatly. ‘I have not. Gerry is very busy. I try to stay out of his way. Mostly, I succeed.’

‘I see,’ said Doctor Gillian. ‘So, ah – how are you two getting on?’

Susanna hesitated. ‘Not great.’

‘I see,’ said Gillian again. ‘That’s … I’m sure you know that’s not surprising, under the circumstances. The terrible loss you’ve experienced, the ongoing stress – it’s tough. It’s tough on even the best marriages.’

Susanna nodded. She was beginning to wish she hadn’t come.

‘Susanna, I’m concerned that you’re not seeing a therapist. You should be seeing someone.’

‘I already saw somebody at the hospital. And when the accident first happened we all had this — what did they call it? Mental intervention? Mental first aid? Something.’

‘You didn’t find it helpful?’

Susanna shrugged. The hospital therapist had a bushy beard and red wet-looking lips that she’d found repulsive. She’d also felt no rapport with him whatsoever, but she didn’t care. ‘Besides,’ she said, ‘there are so many people who’ve gone through much worse than me.’

‘Comparisons are odious,’ said Doctor Gillian firmly as she wrote on a pad. ‘Your whole family should go, preferably. Oh, and I believe the Traffic Accident Commission will cover costs. Talk to Leigh about it.’

She tore the little sheet off and handed it to Susanna. ‘This is his number: Leigh Fermor. I’ve recommended many patients to him and he’s a
really
good counsellor. Family therapy, couples, grief counselling, individual issues …’

‘Issues,’ said Susanna softly, looking at the number.

Doctor Gillian heard the hint of derision in her voice, and suppressed a sigh. ‘Why don’t you just give him a call, Susanna? You really need to see a counsellor at a time like this.’

No, I don’t. What I need is my old life back, and that’s completely, totally, utterly impossible.

‘Hello there, lovely girl!’ said Angie as she approached the bed. ‘Oh, that is a
pretty
haircut!’ She kissed Stella-Jean’s cheek, stroking her fuzz of hair. Finn was wriggling in beside her and she moved back to sit in the chair Susanna had pulled up beside her own.

‘She looks
so
much better without those horrible tubes sticking up her nose,’ Angie whispered.

Susanna nodded. ‘She’s getting better nutrition now too, direct to the stomach.’

‘And much nicer being here in her own room, too,’ Angie said. She leaned in close to her sister and lowered her voice. ‘That intensive care ward was scary. I didn’t like to bring Finn there.’

‘I know. But you came, Ange.’

‘And you’re here with her, Susu, every time I’ve come,’ said Angie. ‘Do you ever take a break?’ This was not said critically, Susanna understood, but with love and genuine concern. The sisters had never spoken of their awful argument in that cafe in Degraves Street, nor of any of the matters that had been raised so painfully. All had been swept aside by the crash, and their amity restored.

Nevertheless, Susanna thought wryly,
Take a break: just what Gerry’s always suggesting.
Though of course she wouldn’t say that now: in fact, Susanna did her best not to even mention Gerry’s name to Angie, and it seemed that Angie, similarly, took care to speak of Gabriel as little as possible too. ‘I do take breaks,’ she said somewhat defensively. ‘And it’s only been three weeks. The statistics say she’s extremely likely to wake up within four weeks.’

‘And she will,’ Angie hastened to assure her. ‘Of course she will.’ They both looked over to where Stella-Jean lay, as still as ever. Finn had wriggled in so close to her side, he was almost
on
the bed, and was whispering in her ear. Susanna felt ashamed that she had never made more effort to understand this unusual little boy.
My only nephew. Stella-Jean’s only cousin.
‘He must miss her so much,’ she said softly.

‘It’s a special thing they have together,’ Angie said. ‘Like we did.’ She touched Susanna’s hand. ‘Like we
do
.’

Just then,
The Jungle Book
CD, one of Stella-Jean’s favourites since childhood, finished playing. Intending to change it, Susanna made to rise, but Finn bounced up saying, ‘Let me choose!’ and began sorting through the pile. A minute later, the atonal chiming and tinking of a gamelan orchestra filled the room. With a note of something like defiance, Finn said, ‘Stella likes
this
one best of all.’

‘She does,’ Susanna said. ‘You’re right, Finn.’

They were quiet for a while, listening to the gamelan. ‘I’ve been trying to figure out why she’s always had this thing about Bali,’ Susanna said to her sister. ‘You know, I don’t think we would’ve kept going back there all these years if she hadn’t formed such a strong attachment to the place.’

‘I think it just suits her personality. She’s always loved being busy making things and the Balinese are like that too. That’s what I thought, the couple of times I’ve come with you. And that lovely girl who looked after them, I always thought she was like Stella-Jean’s big sister.’ Angie gave Susanna a wistful smile.

Susanna recognised Angie’s observations as accurate, and perceptive, which took her aback. She did not expect perceptiveness in her sister.
You’ve underestimated her
, she told herself.
She sees things, better than you do sometimes.
‘Angie,’ she said suddenly, ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

‘You do?’ Angie leaned in eagerly toward her.

The urge to confide bubbled up in Susanna like a spring. ‘I’ve been offered a little studio to paint in, at a kind of arts centre quite close to my place. I think I’m going to take it.’

‘That’s wonderful! You
must!
’ said Angie. ‘It’s exactly what —’

Finn gave a piercing squawk. ‘She’s woked up!’ he cried as they jerked around, startled. And yes, Stella-Jean’s eyes were open, and seemed to be focused – but not on any of them. Gently, Susanna explained that her eyes opened sometimes, but it didn’t mean she was awake, or could even see them. Sure enough, after staring into a high corner of the room for a while, Stella-Jean’s lids drifted down. Finn, who had been holding her hand the whole time, now turned his face right away from them, and Susanna was pretty sure he was crying.

‘Oh dear,’ she said very quietly. ‘This can’t be — oh, Angie, I want him to visit, of course, but this can’t be good for him. Has he had any – any counselling?’
Counselling! You hypocrite!
‘At the school, perhaps?’

‘They suggested it,’ Angie replied in an equally low voice, ‘but Finn said he doesn’t want to talk to anyone. And we … I … well, we believe that faith and prayer are the greatest healers. We’re all praying for Stella-Jean, you know, Susu.’

She means well
, Susanna told herself firmly,
she means well
. ‘Thank you, Ange,’ she said. ‘I know you love her, too.’ She touched her sister’s hand. ‘We all just want the best for our children, don’t we?’

Vinnie was in her framing shop on the ground floor of Studio Lulu, measuring tape in hand, marking off lengths of bevelled-edge timber with a slash of her pencil.

‘Hi there, gorgeous,’ she called when she saw Susanna hesitating in the doorway. ‘Come in. I’ve just got a couple more things to finish off here.’