Hush Little Bird - Nicole Trope - E-Book

Hush Little Bird E-Book

Nicole Trope

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Beschreibung

Birdy thought she would have to wait until she was free again to see Rose, but now Rose has been convicted of a shocking crime and she and Birdy will be together. Birdy has been saving all her anger for Rose. It is Rose who should have protected her and kept her safe. Birdy was little but Rose was big and she knows Rose could have saved her. This is a story about monsters who hide in plain sight and about the secrets we keep from ourselves. It is about children who are betrayed and adults who fail them. This is the story of Birdy who was hurt and Rose who must be made to pay. A provocative and compassionate read from the queen of white-knuckle suspense and searing family drama. You won't be able to put it down.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Grateful acknowledgement is given for permission to reproduce extracts from ‘The Adventures of Isabel’ by Ogden Nash.

Copyright © 1936 by Ogden Nash, renewed.

Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

All rights reserved.

First published in 2015

Copyright © Nicole Trope 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin

83 Alexander Street

Crows Nest NSW 2065

Australia

Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

Email: [email protected]

Web: www.allenandunwin.com/uk

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia

www.trove.nla.gov.au

Trade paperback ISBN 978 1 76011 372 8

E-book ISBN 978 1 92557 574 3

Internal and cover design by Lisa White

Cover photograph: Getty Images

Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia

For all the women in my life past and present:

the grandmothers,

the mothers,

the daughters,

the sisters,

the aunts,

the nieces,

the cousins,

and the friends

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

OTHER TITLES BY NICOLE TROPE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Chapter One

She’s coming today. She’s coming here. Right here to where I am.

I thought I would have to wait until I was free to see her. I thought I would have to wait two years to see her. Two whole, long years. I haven’t seen her for a lot longer than that. I haven’t seen her since I was eight years old and now I am thirty-three years old. That’s twenty-five years.

When I was eight, all I wanted was to get away from her, from him. From them. I wanted to go far away and forget them, but even after I moved away they stayed in my head. They stayed in a corner of my brain, not doing anything, just there, but one day something happened, something horrible and awful and bad and then they were almost all I could think about. And I knew I had to see them again.

I had a plan. I was going to catch a bus to her house. First I was going to catch a bus to their house, but now there is only her left. So it’s only her house.

I know about catching buses and trains. I know how to use my phone to ‘get directions’. I can go anywhere I want to, but I can’t go right now because right now I have to stay here. I know that. I can learn and I can remember things if I’m told over and over again. I just need to hear things more than once. Sometimes I need to hear something lots and lots of times. The door to my brain is always open. Stuff comes in but before I know it, it goes out again. I can’t seem to close the door fast enough.

I know things now. More things than people think I know. I’m not that stupid. I can read and write and add and subtract. I know who I am and what I am. I know I am not clever. All through school none of my teachers ever said, ‘She needs to work harder.’ All of them said, ‘She’s doing her best. She’s really trying.’

Sometimes on her report card Lila’s teacher wrote, Lila is not working to her full potential. Potential means what you can do. Lila is clever, very clever, but Mum said she is also lazy. They never wrote that about me. I always worked to my full potential even though that was not very much potential at all.

I’m smart enough to know I’m a little bit stupid, or ‘slow’ as Mum likes to say. I’m smart enough to know I’m slow. That’s how smart I am. I used to get angry about being slow, about not understanding things and about having to learn them over and over again, but now I just accept it. ‘Not everyone can be the top of the class,’ Mum said to me every time I brought home my report card. But I didn’t want to be the top of the class. I just didn’t want to be right at the bottom. But right at the bottom is where I stayed. I never had very much potential at all.

Mum said she was fine with me being at the bottom of the class, but she wasn’t. Not really. Just because she told me she was fine doesn’t mean that was the truth. I knew how she really felt. When I was little I heard her. I heard her tell the truth all the time.

‘How am I supposed to deal with something like this? I don’t have a husband to help me. How can I cope? I’ll have to watch over her for the rest of my life. When do I get taken care of, Violet? When?’

I wasn’t supposed to be listening. I was supposed to be playing next door, but I was hiding and I was listening to Mum talk to Aunty Vi who lived in London. I used to be good at hiding. I could stay quiet for a long time. When I was quiet I would hear lots of things I wasn’t supposed to hear. That’s how I knew that Mum wasn’t fine with me being at the bottom of the class.

‘I know, Violet, I’m not saying I’ve given up on her, but she’s always going to be a little different, isn’t she? I mean, she’s nearly eight now and the other children are already starting to notice it . . . I know that there’s nothing you can do. You live in another country. I’m not asking you to do anything. I just need someone to talk to. You have no idea how difficult it is to be alone in this world, no idea at all.’

I was in the cupboard under the stairs where the winter coats were stored. I was touching the fur coat that belonged to Mum. She never wore it because she didn’t like it, so it lived under the stairs like a lonely pet. It was soft and warm.

‘I don’t know what will happen to her. I’m just not coping right now. I’ve had to sell the house. Did I tell you? We’re moving to a dreadful little shitbox out in some horrible suburb. It was all I could afford Violet . . . I’m not asking you for anything, I’m just trying to talk to you. I am so . . . so humiliated by all this. What have I done to deserve such a life? What?’

Mum’s voice was all wobbly. I knew she was crying. She was crying about the house, because she had to sell it so the bloody bank wouldn’t come and get it. Back then I thought the bloody bank was a giant who could lift up our whole house with one hand and take it away. At night I had dreams about being crushed in the bloody bank’s giant fingers. I had hidden my most special toys behind my chest of drawers. When the bloody bank took the house I was going to grab them and jump out of the front door. Under the stairs I patted Mum’s lonely pet fur coat and thought about hiding it as well. Now I know that a bank is just a building where you keep your money.

I was afraid the bloody bank would take everything away, but I wasn’t sad to be moving. I wanted to leave the big house more than anything in the world. I hated it. We were moving far, far away. Our shitbox was very small. I would still have my own room, but the carpet was grey with sticky patches on it, not like my carpet in my bedroom in the big house. That carpet was peach-coloured and soft. I liked to put my cheek on it and feel it tickle me. I knew that the sticky grey carpet wouldn’t feel nice on my cheek, but I still liked the shitbox better than the big house.

‘Stop talking to me about new beginnings, Violet,’ said Mum. ‘Your husband hasn’t left you for someone else. Your husband is probably sitting in his armchair right now reading the newspaper. This is not a new beginning for me. It’s the end of my life as I’ve known it. He could have had the decency to allow me to live here for another few years, but the bitch he married wants her own house.’ Mum was finished crying and she was shouting at Aunty Vi. She shouted at Aunty Vi a lot after Dad left to live with the bitch. Lila and I never got to meet the bitch. Mum wouldn’t let us. ‘Your father doesn’t give two hoots about either of you,’ said Mum.

I have not seen my dad for almost my whole life. He had blue eyes and he would shave the hair off his face and cut himself and say ‘bugger’.

When I hid under the stairs I was scared of Mum shouting at Aunty Vi and crying. Some days Mum shouted at Aunty Vi and then when she was finished shouting at her she shouted at me. I didn’t like shouting days.

That was so many years ago. Some things stay in my brain even when I don’t want them to. Sad things and bad things won’t go out even when I leave the door open.

They stayed in my brain. They stayed and stayed. I think about him and I think about her. They are both stuck in my brain, but now he is gone and she is coming here.

She is coming here today.

I thought I’d have more time to plan before I saw her. I didn’t expect them to bring her here to where I am. I needed time to plan what I wanted to say and what I wanted to do, but now that I know she’s coming I don’t know what’s going to happen.

No, that’s not true. I know what’s going to happen; I just don’t know how it’s going to happen.

I don’t know who first found out she was coming here, but now everyone knows and everyone is jumpy and excited. The news about her coming was whispered from person to person and ear to ear until everyone knew. No one whispered to me, but Jess told me. She tells me everything I need to know. ‘A real celebrity here, imagine that,’ said Jess, but she didn’t smile so I don’t think she was happy.

For weeks and weeks all the women in my unit have watched her on television and tried to decide: did she do it?

I live in unit seven with Maya and Mina and Jess. They shout and argue and laugh when they talk about the ‘did she or didn’t she’. They shout and laugh and talk about lots of things. They all know about so many things. They know about celebrities and sport and history and the weather. They know about cooking and sewing and people you can’t trust. Jess says, ‘I think . . .’, and Mina says, ‘Well, in my opinion . . .’, and Maya says, ‘I know.’

I don’t talk with them. I am quiet. I am good at listening.

I don’t care if she did or she didn’t. I’m just glad that he is dead and buried under the ground with the worms. I hope they are crawling all over his skin. I have to rub my arms when I think about the worms crawling on his skin. I have to make sure there are no worms on me.

When I think about her coming here I have to swallow and swallow so I don’t throw up.

Last night I lay in bed and I wondered if she would know me or not. I chewed my nails as I lay in the dark and thought and thought. I made my fingers bleed. In the dark I could feel the sting on my skin that means I have torn off a big piece of nail, and now when Jess sees it she’ll say, ‘Oh, Birdy, you were doing so well.’ I hate disappointing Jess. She was going to give me a proper manicure at the end of the week. I had already chosen the colour. It’s a pretty pink colour and it’s called ‘No Baggage Please’. That’s a funny name for nail polish but I like it anyway.

I got some blood on the sheets because even when it hurts I can’t stop myself from tearing off pieces of nail, and I know when Allison comes around to do her inspection she’ll shake her head and sigh but she won’t let me change the sheets. I’ll have to sleep in them until laundry day.

This morning when I woke up I looked in the small mirror over the basin in the bathroom and I knew that it was silly to worry about her knowing me. The me she knew is not the same me now. I dye my hair black and I’m an adult. I take up a lot more space as well. A lot more space.

‘You don’t need all that starch,’ Jess says to me when we make dinner, but I like the potatoes and rice. I like being bigger. Besides, rice and potatoes are cheap. They fill you up nicely. We have to buy all our own food and there is never enough money. I am good at counting out my money. I keep it safe until canteen day.

On canteen day we get to spend our money on things that we want, not just things that we need. You need bread but you don’t need chocolate. Maggie runs the canteen and when she sees me she smiles and says, ‘and what can I get for you today, young Birdy?’ I like Maggie. Once she gave me a free bar of chocolate. It was all squashed but it still tasted the same. Jess doesn’t like to see me eating chocolate. She shakes her head and says, ‘If you would just cut back a bit you could lose some weight.’

‘But I don’t want to lose weight,’ I always tell her. ‘I like being big and strong.’ ‘There’s no one to be afraid of in here, Birdy,’ says Jess. ‘You don’t have to be big and strong.’

I would like to tell Jess that she has no idea what I have to be afraid of, but she knows some things about me and she also knows about being afraid. Everyone here knows about being afraid. We are all locked up in here because of the things we’ve done when we’ve been afraid.

Anyway, I’m not scared of anything here. I’m just making sure that I can be seen. When I was small I couldn’t be seen. Even after I had grown up and I was as tall as Mum, some people couldn’t see me. Mum never really saw me. I wanted to be seen but I also wanted to be light and free to fly away. You can see things that are light and free if you look carefully, but as quickly as you see them, they’re gone. Now I am big and I cannot fly away, but at least I can be seen.

‘Move out of the way, you big lump,’ said Jess when she wanted to get to the kettle, and then she said, ‘Sorry, Birdy.’ I don’t mind being called a big lump. You know a big lump is there. You can’t pretend that it isn’t. When I was light and small there were a lot of things to be afraid of. Now I’m a big lump and sometimes people are afraid of me.

I wonder what she was afraid of. I wonder if she was afraid of him. I wonder if she is afraid of coming here.

It doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t care about her thoughts and feelings. I don’t care about what she did or didn’t do.

Mostly, mostly, I care about what I’m going to do to her.

Chapter Two

This place is really not as dreadful as I feared it would be. It is almost a relief to be here now, to have the waiting over and done with. There were some surreal moments in the last few weeks where I became convinced that I would be locked forever in the limbo of waiting to know my fate. Some nights, as I waited for my sentencing hearing to finally begin, I found myself drawn to those lamentable television prison dramas. I watched them with growing horror and I decided that there was a fair chance I wouldn’t make it through the first week of my incarceration without being stabbed in the shower by some woman sporting a giant tattoo of a skull and crossbones. The thought of having to get into a communal shower was beyond humiliating, although I had no idea if the showers were communal or not.

One night I stood in front of my full-length bedroom mirror for nearly an hour, looking at myself from every angle, identifying flaws. I knew as I was doing it how ridiculous it was to worry about such a thing, but I still kept looking. I imagined the eyes of hundreds of strange women on my body, and I wanted to curl into a ball and stay under the bedcovers forever.

‘It’s not going to be like that at all, Mother,’ said Portia when I told her what I was dreading.

‘Then what’s it going to be like?’ I asked, and I had to struggle to keep myself from dissolving into tears. Portia does not tolerate self-pity. She spends too much time with underprivileged children and teenagers and doesn’t think that anyone else has a right to complain. ‘If you had seen what I’ve seen’ is one of her favourite mantras. It ends every conversation very quickly. It is of little value to remind her of my own childhood in a suburb populated by immigrants trying desperately to make a new home for themselves. Perhaps I have glossed over what it was like when I reminisce about those days to my children. I am sure I have never told her of the nights when Lena, our next door neighbour, would knock on the door, waking us from sleep. Her face would always be sporting a fresh bruise. Her three-year-old twins would be by her side, tearful and exhausted, and hasty beds would be made for them all on our living room floor. ‘Sleep it off, Rolf,’ I would hear my father shout through the locked front door when the banging began. ‘Sleep it off.’

Sometimes Portia is insufferable, but lately she is the rock I have come to rely on. Logic rather than sympathy is what I need right now

‘I don’t think you’re going to be sent to prison. And if the worst happens, Eric will appeal. If that doesn’t work, he’ll appeal again and again until we get you out. You are not without resources, Mother.’

‘Money can’t solve every problem, Portia,’ I said.

‘It can solve a fair few of them,’ she replied. ‘I’m sure in the end money will get you out.’

‘Out of where?’ I shouted.

‘Calm down. Just calm down! Look, whatever happens you have to know that we will do our best to ensure that we keep you out of prison. If by some chance you do get sent to prison, I’m sure it will only be a minimum-security facility. After all, you’re hardly a threat to anyone.’

I don’t know why Portia thought she knew what was going to happen. It may be that she found it inconceivable that I would be locked up like a common criminal, just like she might once have found it inconceivable that I would be charged with such a crime. Life can be filled with nasty surprises. I’ve spent most of the last eighteen months in a state of shock.

Although I wanted to believe her, I couldn’t put aside my fear that the absolute worst would happen. I had been right about the trial. I had known that, despite everything I had been told, the jury would find against me. I knew that there was no reason why I should not be sent to prison for manslaughter.

‘Prison is a last resort,’ said Portia.

‘Then that is where I will be going’ I said, making Portia shake her head at my apparent stubbornness.

The trial seems very long ago now, although little more than a month has passed. If I close my eyes I can still summon up the stale smell of the courtroom. I can still feel the acid in my stomach as I listened to the prosecutor demolish my entire life.

I knew that the jury were going to find against me. I’d been watching their faces throughout the trial, and there was a point when they just stopped looking at me. Of the twelve jury members, seven were women. I had thought that would be a good thing, but it didn’t seem to help at all. There was one woman who looked to be about my age, but she was missing a couple of teeth and had that worn look of someone who has had to struggle for everything. I’ve seen that kind of face before. My mother had that face. I could see her hating me from day one. Perhaps I shouldn’t have worn the Chanel suit, but it’s not like they didn’t know who I was. His face was all over the news for months before it happened. And then afterwards, so was mine.

If I had been allowed to speak to them I would have explained that I was wearing the pale pink suit to mourn him, to celebrate him. On our first trip to Paris he’d pulled me into the Chanel store and insisted I try it on. I’d only indulged him because I thought we were simply amusing ourselves, but then he bought it for me, signing the credit card slip with a flourish and a smile. ‘It’s too much,’ I’d said. ‘Nothing is too much for you,’ he’d replied.

Of course the prosecutor brought money into it. When the huge sum was mentioned, I watched the eyes of most of the jurors glaze over. Talk of millions of dollars belongs in magazines, not real life.

‘They will discuss his life insurance,’ Eric had told me.

‘I didn’t even know about that,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘We’ll make sure the jury knows that.’

From knowing nothing about the Australian legal system, I now feel as though I could write a book about it. Is this me? I often thought during the trial. Am I really sitting here listening to this? Could I possibly be the person they are talking about?

‘What has happened to our lives?’ wailed Rosalind after she read the first of many articles about the trial. Rosalind has not dealt well with everything that has happened. The trial was merely the horrible culmination of an appalling year and a half. Eric assured me that I wouldn’t even be charged with anything, especially after what we had all been going through; but when I was charged and the whole system shunted into top gear all I could do, all the girls could do, was just hang on.

I could have spoken to Rosalind about my fears regarding prison life, but she would have simply dissolved into tears with me and that would have achieved nothing. Rosalind, even more so than me, seemed to be coming apart at the edges. I wanted to help her but I couldn’t seem to concentrate on anyone but myself. It was not the kind of mother I had always imagined myself to be. I was supposed to be selfless, not selfish.

I knew once all the jurors stopped looking at me that I was doomed. I knew what they were doing. It must be very difficult to know that someone’s fate hinges on a single decision you have to make. It would be hard to look into the eyes of someone whose life you are about to destroy. It must be easier to make that decision if you dehumanise that person. At some point I must have gone from being Rose Winslow, mother, grandmother and the well-dressed lady sitting quietly next to her lawyer, to Rose Winslow, the accused. Rose Winslow, murderer. Murderess? I don’t know what you call someone charged with manslaughter.

The press referred to me as a mother and grandmother, but in some articles I was also described as beautiful. I would never tell anyone I had picked up that particular detail as I read about my alleged crime, but it stood out when I saw it. I quite liked being called beautiful even though I am not beautiful, merely well put together. In court I wore my long brown hair in a low bun and my face was only lightly made up, just enough to cover the small age spots on my face and the dark circles under my eyes. The only jewellery I had on was my plain gold wedding band. I suppose that on a good day with the right makeup I can look fifty, maybe even late forties. Life is supposed to begin at fifty now—or is it forty? I can’t remember which. Not that it matters. My life is, I think, essentially over.

After the sentence was handed down, Eric immediately stated his intention to file for an appeal. He was more in control of himself at the sentencing hearing. At the trial he was as shocked by the verdict as everyone else. You wouldn’t have known it to look at him. The only thing that changed about his usual upright demeanour and impassive face was a slight thinning of the lips. I’m sure no one in the courtroom noticed but me. But then I was the only one there who’d known him for thirty years.

‘A good family always has a good lawyer, my dear,’ Simon had said after I’d been introduced to him for the first time. Eric was just starting out then. Now his name is on the front of his own building. ‘Look how far we’ve come, old friend,’ Simon would say to Eric in his later years, and then they would toast each other with cigars and whisky. ‘Eric will always be here for you Rose and he will help you when I am gone,’ Simon told me whenever we talked about our old age.

‘What if I go first?’ I asked Simon when he lectured me on what to do after he was gone, because the idea of a life without him was unthinkable to me. I was sure that without him I would be reduced to sitting on the couch waiting to die.

‘Oh, my darling girl,’ laughed Simon. ‘My darling, darling girl.’

He had taken care of me for so long that at first I couldn’t even begin to think about how to take care of myself. I know that frustrated Portia. ‘What do you mean you don’t know the password for online banking?’ she said when we were discussing money to pay for the funeral.‘Your father must have written it down somewhere,’ I said. ‘I just never needed it before now.’

‘Give her a break, Portia,’ said Rosalind.

‘Stop mollycoddling her, Rosalind, these are important things to know. You’re going to have to step up to the plate on this, Mother. I have a job and Roz has kids. You have to grow up and take care of yourself.’

Had it been a different time I’m sure I would have squared my shoulders and said, ‘Don’t you dare presume to patronise me, Portia.’ As it was I did feel somewhat like a child who had lost a parent. I felt adrift. Adrift and bereft.

‘Please don’t lecture me,’ I said instead. ‘It’s hardly the time.’

‘I’ll make some tea,’ said Rosalind, hoping as usual to distract Portia before she worked herself up into a frenzy.

‘Oh God, spare me another cup of tea,’ said Portia. ‘What is it with everyone and tea? It’s not like it brings back the dead.’

‘Please, have some respect for Mum,’ said Rosalind.

‘Girls, I think I might have a little lie-down,’ I said. I have had a lot of lie-downs in the last year. During the trial and in the weeks awaiting sentencing I spent quite a few hours hiding in my bedroom from my girls. They meant well, but together they were a little too much to handle.

After the guilty verdict, the whole courtroom erupted. Portia and Rosalind, who had both been outward models of composure throughout the trial, let me down by losing control. Portia started shouting and Rosalind wept into her hands. Simon would have been very disapproving. He had been raised by an English mother who had taught him the importance of a stiff upper lip. (In fact, he seemed, at times, more English than Australian. It was an affectation of his that he held onto tightly. Most people on meeting him for the first time assumed that he had not lived in Australia for most of his life. Simon was always delighted when that happened. ‘I could have been in the House of Lords,’ he liked to say. I never contradicted him. His fantasy life as an Englishman was something I got used to.)

‘She always impressed upon me the need to keep my emotions in check, especially when my father behaved badly,’ he used to say about his mother.

‘What do you mean by behaved badly?’ I asked, but he never had a clear answer for me. Simon’s true past was a secret he sheltered. Occasionally he would speak of a home filled with violence and humiliation, but just as quickly he would retreat from his words and refuse to say any more. ‘But what do you mean he was violent, Simon?’ I would ask. ‘What did he do?’

‘There are some things, Rose, that are too terrible to say, just too terrible to even think about. I would not want to burden you with the knowledge.’

I don’t know if it was the truth. I never got to meet anyone from his family. During interviews he would sometimes smile mysteriously when asked about his family, ‘Oh, I don’t think they would want their private affairs discussed,’ he would say, leaving the journalist to make his or her own assumptions about his past. I remember one article where it was speculated that he was descended from royalty. How he loved that. ‘Where did they get that idea?’ I asked him, but his only reply was an odd little laugh. I’m sure that one or two reporters went looking for his family, but they never looked very hard. It was a different time, I suppose, and there were fewer resources to track down the truth, and more respect for the aura of untouchability that surrounded celebrities.

When we first met I thought his inscrutability was part of his charm. Now I regard myself as remarkably gullible to have let him get away with saying such things. If I had questioned him more I might have known more. Or perhaps not. Knowing now how carefully constructed his persona was, how much he was concealing, I cannot believe he would have given up his secrets so easily.

At the judge’s reading of the verdict, the members of the press who had been granted access were also unable to restrain themselves. There was a lot of noise. They wanted me to turn around and so kept calling my name. They wanted to see the look on my face.

I sank into my chair and then I sat very still with my hands in my lap. I heard the raised voices calling out, but distantly, as though they were coming from another room. My heartbeat was louder than the sounds being made by my daughters, who were sitting right behind me. I twisted my wedding ring around and around and concentrated on my breathing. What? I thought. What? When I looked at my daughters and Eric, for a moment I had no idea who they were.

I had both expected the guilty verdict and not expected it. Now I realise I would have been better off to just assume that everything would be fine. I could have used the time to simply enjoy being in my home rather than spending every waking moment worrying about whether or not I would be found guilty. I heard Eric ask for bail while I awaited sentencing and I heard it granted.

Even though I knew that worrying cannot change anything I still did just as much fretting as I awaited my sentencing. There really is no rest for the wicked.

Eric’s lips thinned a little more at the chaos after the verdict. I have often wondered what Eric looks like at the point of orgasm. I have never wanted to sleep with him or anything, but I would like to know if his face changes. I would ask his wife, Patricia, but we are not so close that I could say something like that to her. Over thirty years of dinners and lunches and brunches I have never seen Eric look any different. Even when he smiles and laughs, the top of his face stays still and only his mouth moves. It must be disconcerting for Patricia and their children.

The barrister we had hired was also a little rattled at the result. His wig slipped to one side and I would have laughed at him but I’m a little awed by him. He has a tattoo of a snake all the way up his muscular arm. The first time I went to meet him in his very imposing wood-panelled office in the city, I thought he was a builder who had come to fix something. The man was actually holding a hammer and chewing on some nails.

‘Sorry,’ he said when he saw that Eric and I were already seated in his office. ‘If you want something done, it seems easiest to do it yourself.’

He was wearing black pants and a shirt with no tie, and when he leaned forward to take some papers from Eric his sleeve slipped up and I saw the tail end of something tattooed on his wrist.

‘It’s a snake,’ he said, catching me looking.

‘Oh, I didn’t . . .’ I said. I felt my cheeks flush.

‘Don’t worry,’ he laughed. ‘If I’d known I’d have to spend my whole life explaining it I would never have done it. What can you do? The folly of youth.’

I nodded my head to let him know I understood, but the tattoo wasn’t the reason I blushed. Robert has wide strong wrists and broad shoulders. He is entirely too good looking to be a barrister. However past it society thinks I am, I am still very capable of being attracted to a good-looking man.

‘He’s the best in the business,’ Eric said to me as we left Robert’s office.

‘He better be for that amount of money,’ I said.

‘Rose, we will keep you out of jail. I know that’s what Simon would want, and I will not let him down,’ said Eric, and then we were both quite sad for a few minutes.

Those little bouts of sadness are the hardest to handle. Strange though it may seem, great waves of grief are easier, because you know that all you can do is sit tight and allow them to pass over you. They are so overwhelming that you can do nothing except give into them. You may be tumbled about a bit, but eventually you will be able to stand up and breathe again. The little waves that just lap at your feet come with no warning and somehow manage to be more devastating. They tend to arrive right in the middle of an ordinary moment, rushing in when they’re least expected.

I didn’t think Simon would have liked Robert—he was always suspicious of a man who didn’t wear a tie. Simon loved silk ties. For years they were a standard birthday and Christmas gift from the girls. The night before closing arguments and the verdict, I found myself sitting on the floor of his closet rubbing my face with his favourite paisley tie. It smelled vaguely of cigar smoke and the aftershave he loved. I cannot live without him, I thought. I simply cannot go on. I don’t know what would have happened if Rosalind hadn’t knocked on my bedroom door.

‘You believe me, Eric, don’t you?’ I’d asked Eric as we waited for a cab after that first meeting with Robert. ‘About what happened, I mean?’ I have probably asked Eric that question at least a hundred times since it happened. His answer is always in the same vein. He never actually answers yes or no, so I am always left wondering. Mostly I’m left wondering because I’m not sure if I believe me.

‘Rose, I’ve known you for thirty years,’ he said on this occasion. ‘You’ve never even had a parking ticket, and I know how much you loved him. You would never have wanted to hurt him.’

A cab pulled up next to us, and Eric opened the door for me. I would have preferred to catch the train home from the city, but Eric would never have allowed that. I stared out of the window at all the people going about their ordinary days—perhaps wondering what they would have for lunch—and mulled over Eric’s words: You would never have wanted to hurt him.

Those closest to me had seemingly accepted my version of events. There was no one who could challenge me on them, after all. I was and am grateful for their support, but I have spent many nights questioning what they actually believe. I know Rosalind would like to question me further, but she has never been one to press the point. Portia’s stance on things has become her stance as well—or it had before I was convicted. I am sure if my mother or father were still alive I could count on them for the truth of what they believed, but I have lived without them for years.

I play out the events of that night in my head again and again, trying to come up with a different outcome, trying to bend reality. I know what I did and I thought I knew why I did it. But what if I was wrong? I keep thinking. What if I was wrong?

‘I am very confident of a not-guilty verdict,’ Robert had said to me, Eric and the girls as we waited for the jury to return after they had been sequestered. We hadn’t bothered to go home, because Robert thought the verdict would come back quickly, so we were sitting in a cafe eating a rather poor lunch. I had a piece of salmon quiche and salad. The quiche was bland and the salad was limp and sad. Portia had ordered a glass of wine and a pasta dish. I’m not sure you can trust wine served in a cafe, but she drank it quickly enough. It probably made the pasta more palatable. Rosalind ordered a piece of cake and then didn’t eat it because she was worried about the children.

‘I’m sure Jack can manage just fine,’ I said to her after she had checked her phone for the tenth time in five minutes.

‘Oh, of course he can,’ she said, but then she checked it again.

‘They’re still at school, what are you getting so hysterical about?’ said Portia.

‘Portia, why don’t you concentrate on your lunch?’ said Rosalind.

‘Now, girls,’ I said, without meaning to. I sometimes forget they are grown women. They still argue like children. Eric looked uncomfortable, but Robert was happily making his way through a steak sandwich. He ate neatly and carefully, only pausing to look at Portia or say something reassuring to me. Portia had tied up her hair, but it’s curly and has a habit of escaping. One blonde lock had curled itself under her chin and I wanted to lean forward and brush it away from her face. I think Robert wanted to do the same thing, raising his hand a couple of times only to run it through his own hair.

Portia is bewitchingly beautiful. She is the type of woman men fight over. Rosalind and I look alike, but Portia looks like Simon. Lips that were just a little too full on a man are perfect on Portia.

The cafe was opposite the courthouse so it was very busy with people coming in and out, and just about everyone looked over at us. I can’t stand being recognised. As I salted my quiche I daydreamed a little about taking a long trip once my case was over; although I knew that I probably wouldn’t get the chance. I didn’t know then that you get to go home after the verdict and return a few weeks later for sentencing. Neither Robert nor Eric had discussed this part of the trial process. The assumption was that I would return home, vindicated and free to get on with my life.

I knew I would be found guilty and I didn’t know. I thought that if I prepared for the worst it wouldn’t eventuate. That is, I now see, entirely the wrong way to think. Just because you prepare for the worst doesn’t mean you won’t be completely blindsided when it occurs.

‘We’ve made the case that you didn’t mean for it to happen. It was more his choice than yours, and we’ve explained about your state of mind and his state of mind. They have to take your state of mind at the time into consideration,’ said Robert to me as he sipped his Diet Coke and stared at my daughter.

I really didn’t mean for it to happen, or maybe I did. I have no idea anymore. Robert’s summation made a great deal of sense, and once he was done I knew that he had explained the situation perfectly, but then the longer we waited and waited for the jury to come back, the less sure I was of what had really happened. It seemed to me that the twelve people on the jury had not only seen into my very soul but had also seen past any lies I may have been telling myself. I knew it was silly to accord them such omniscience, but they were, after all, holding my life in their hands.

I had been in a state of uncertainty ever since that dreadful night. I would wake up from a fitful sleep convinced that I had been a victim of circumstance, and then a couple of hours later I would be berating myself and declaring that I was a murderer. Murderess? Back and forth I went and round and round. I was exhausted.

Finally we gave up on lunch and walked back to Robert’s offices. ‘They’re going to convict me,’ I said to Eric.

‘Rose, you’re fifty-five years old. No one is going to convict you of this crime. Robert has explained the extenuating circumstances to the jury. I’m confident they will vote the way they should.’

Well, that wasn’t how it turned out.

Unless Eric and Robert manage to get their appeal through I have to stay here for a non-parole period of three years. A journalist from some tabloid paper wrote a long article on the unfairness of my short sentence. Portia told me about it when I was allowed to call her. The journalist blamed the ‘cult of celebrity’. I would like to invite her to live here for even one day and then we could discuss how short three years is.

I thought it would be vile, but as Portia predicted, it is only minimum security. Apparently, many strings have been pulled to get me in here.

Sentencing took place one month after my conviction. It was too soon and not soon enough at the same time. I just wanted it over with, but I was also terrified of the sentencing decision as I tormented myself with all the possibilities of prison life. Portia simply moved into the house to be with me while I waited.

Robert had the girls speak on my behalf at the sentencing hearing. Patricia came as well and some other old friends, although I hadn’t heard from many of them for months and months. I was grateful for their appearance, but I couldn’t help feeling that what they were really doing was collecting fodder for dinner conversation. I tried to appear composed. I even smiled at Joan whom I had not heard from for twelve months.

The judge was not swayed by the glowing testimonies on my behalf. He still sent me to prison. It emerged that Robert and Eric had already thought through this eventuality. ‘We’ll lodge the appeal as soon as we can,’ Eric said.

Once the trial was over the press backed off a little, but only a little. Portia and I spent a lot of time drinking wine and watching old movies. We didn’t discuss Simon. At night, alone in my bed, I fretted and worried. I did not sleep very much at all.

‘I feel I’ve let you down,’ said Eric just before I was led away to wait for transport to my ‘home’ for the next three years.

‘Robert was in charge, and he did his best,’ I said. ‘Neither of you could have predicted this outcome.’ Even to my own ears my voice was flat and devoid of emotion. I seemed to have run out of energy.

‘We’ll get you out of prison as soon as possible, Rose. I will not sleep until you are free.’

‘You have to sleep,’ I said. ‘Patricia will be angry with me if you don’t.’

‘It will be bearable. The place where you’re going will be bearable.’

‘How do you know?’

Eric gave me a small smile and patted my hand reassuringly and then I felt the hand of the policeman on my back as he pushed me forward towards a door at the back of the courtroom—away from Robert and Eric, away from my daughters.

And now I am here. I think that Eric and Robert had this place in mind for me even before the trial began. I suppose they are paid to think about every eventuality.

It looks like a very basic health retreat, but it is definitely a prison. It’s a collection of small buildings dotted across a large property. There is a fence but it’s only made of wire and the gate stands wide open day and night, as if to indicate that no one would ever want to escape from here. Perhaps that’s because the surrounding bush stretches all the way to the mountains without another building in sight. ‘Where would you go?’ the open gate seems to be asking. The air feels cleaner and colder as though it comes straight down from the ring of mountains. It only took a couple of hours to get here from the city, so Portia and Rosalind will be able to come and see me whenever they can.

When I arrived they took away all my clothes and I had to select something to wear from a room filled with cast-offs. The choice was limited to tracksuit pants and flannel shirts. Once I was dressed I resembled a bag lady. Everything was far too big on me. In my weeks waiting to learn my eventual fate I had found it difficult to eat.

‘We don’t like clothes to be anything except functional,’ Sergeant Rossini told me.

‘These are certainly functional,’ I said, and then I had to bite down on my lip. I didn’t want to burst into tears in front of her. I had been appalled at the thought of getting undressed in front of hundreds of women, but undressing in front of one was strangely even more humiliating. I had to be searched. I don’t think I will be able to forget that experience for a long time.

‘You can call me Natalie,’ said Sergeant Rossini. ‘We like to keep things a little casual here.’ Natalie was dressed in a uniform but her dark hair hung halfway down her back. While she was talking to me she twisted it into a knot, exposing her long neck. She is rather pretty with olive skin and dark eyes. She took away my clothes and my jewellery and carefully logged everything in a book and stored it away. ‘It will be given back to you when you leave.’

‘Can’t I keep my wedding ring? It’s just a gold band.’

‘I’m afraid not. We like to make sure that all the women here have more or less the same things. We don’t want anyone bullied because they have nice things, or shamed because they don’t. We don’t like to worry about things getting stolen either. If you all look the same and you all have the same, it makes things less complicated.’

It was becoming harder and harder not to cry. I have worn my wedding ring for nearly forty years. I have never taken it off. Even when my fingers swelled during my pregnancies I kept it on.

‘Now,’ said Natalie, ‘I’ll take you over to your unit. You’re in unit four. You’ll share with three other women. People come and go quite quickly here, so the makeup of units changes all the time. If you don’t get along with someone it’s not worth making a fuss.’