After the Fall (43 page)

‘Outside the cathedral.’ Coughing. ‘Can you come and get me?’

Thirty-four

It wasn’t Sacha I brought home. Not my little laughing girl, not the confident bombshell people adored at first sight. It wasn’t her body, and it wasn’t her soul.

This was a sallow corpse with disgusting clothes and few words. There was nobody home inside this head. The flesh had fallen off her face with terrifying speed, her eyes had sunk into their sockets. Open sores defaced a drooping mouth. I don’t believe she’d slept for three days. She had been fuelled by meth, not by food or sleep. She looked and smelled repulsive— putrid, like something I might have dug up in a graveyard.

I once had a cat who was a magnificent hunter. He was bitten by a rat and developed an abscess at the base of his tail. The poor creature was driven half mad before I got him to the vet. He licked furiously, walked a few yards, stopped, licked furiously. That was Sacha, slumped beside me in the car. Scratch scratch. Pick pick.

‘Stop,’ I implored, reaching to pull her hand away. ‘You’re tearing right into the muscle. Where’s your car?’

‘I owed a shitload of money.’ She spoke in a low monotone.

‘You sold it? How
could
you?’ I heard myself raging on and on in an uncanny imitation of my own mother, forgetting that Finn and Charlie were sitting subdued in the back seat. I was wasting my breath. Sacha wasn’t beside me at all; she was in some hell of her own.

Once we were home, the boys hovered around their silent sister with worry drawn across their foreheads. ‘Bleater’s calling, Sacha,’ said Charlie. He pointed over at the woolshed. ‘D’you wanna cuddle her?’

‘You can feed her if you want,’ wheedled Finn.

Sacha ignored them. She limped inside, to be greeted by a tail-waggingly rapturous Muffin. Dog and boys followed us like a funeral procession across the hall and up the stairs.

‘She’s just tired,’ I told them. ‘She stayed up all weekend, silly old girl.’

‘She smells,’ said Finn, holding his nose. ‘It’s yuck.’

‘Can we watch
Mary Poppins
?’ asked Charlie. It was a sure sign of anxiety. After all, Mary Poppins was unfailingly fragrant.

‘Yes, while I make the supper.’

They loitered, casting worried glances at their sister’s departing back. ‘Has she got the yucky snotty cold again?’ asked Finn.

‘’Fraid so.’ I gave him a little push towards the sitting room. ‘Off you go.’

Sacha was contorted on her bed, shaking and sweating. ‘They’re coming,’ she said, very loudly.

‘Nobody’s coming,’ I soothed, trying to cover her with the duvet. ‘You’re safe at home.’

‘Can’t you hear them?’

I listened intently, afraid I would hear the shattering roar of motorbikes on the drive. I imagined men with balaclavas and baseball bats and cruel, crazed eyes, coming to collect a debt or exact revenge.
Rival gangs . . .
life is cheap to these people.
But there was only the chickens, clucking and squawking at some menace.

‘It’s those chooks. Something’s upset them.’ I reached out my hand to lay it on her forehead.

She shrank away, staring wildly around the room. ‘We have to run.’

‘This is all in your mind.’

‘I wish it was.’ She began to sob with fear.

I walked downstairs in a daze. I knew, now. There were no choices left. I had to save Sacha, even if it meant the end of my marriage, our adventure, the end of everything. We had to go back to England. The boys would not grow up in this extraordinary landscape, with space to breathe and play and live. Kit and I would never again sit on the verandah steps and watch the sun rise. It was over. I felt a desperate sense of loss, worse than when we left our home in Bedfordshire.

Finn was chasing our poor chickens. ‘Fly!’ he screamed, harrying them in a raucous mob around the yard. ‘Fly, my hordes of darkness!’ His hordes of darkness fled under the house, just as I bisected their tormentor’s path and frogmarched him inside.

He was rattled; up and off, ferreting in the toy box, scattering chaos. During supper he used his fork as a trebuchet—inspired by a computer game, I suspect—and Charlie’s face as a target. Then he refused to get into the bath.

‘Daddy’s coming home tomorrow,’ exulted Charlie, rolling around under the tap.

‘That’s right. Tomorrow. Finn, will you please get in?’

‘Jussa
minute
!’

‘No, now.’

‘Mind out!’ he screeched, vaulting into the bath fully clothed. Charlie called his brother a no-good nincompoop. Finn grabbed Charlie by the hair and pushed his face under the water where he held it with fratricidal determination until I came to the rescue.

‘That’s
it
!’ I growled. ‘Straight to bed with no story for you, Finn McNamara.’

Eyes blazing, he stood up and grabbed the plastic jug we used for washing the boys’ hair. It was full to the brim, and he emptied it over my head. The next moment he’d slipped on the soap, fallen face first, and had blood spurting out of his nose.

Pandemonium. Blood and water everywhere. I was still cleaning up when the phone rang. I ran down to the kitchen to find Finn holding the receiver close to his mouth, squinting censoriously up at me with a bloodied towel pressed to his face.

‘Yes, she did,’ he was insisting self-righteously, head bobbing up and down like a nodding dog. ‘Yes. Would you believe that? She
did
! And now my nose is bleeding . . . Daddy wants a word with you, Mummy.’

I snatched at the phone.

Kit’s laughter. ‘Witch! Have you been battering my son?’

‘Whatever he’s accusing me of, it’s all true. Are you in Auckland?’

‘Better than Auckland. The interview was postponed.’

‘No!’

‘The reporter broke her femur. Snowboarding. I’m driving home.’

‘Is that safe?’

‘I’m already halfway. If I start to nod off, I’ll find a motel. Otherwise I’ll see you about ten.’

‘I can’t wait,’ I said, and meant it.

‘How’s Sacha?’

‘Sacha?’ Now was certainly not the time. ‘Fine.’

I read my boys a story. It’s one thing to impose penalties; quite another to stick to them when your five-year-old has fallen and bumped his nose. I slid under Charlie’s duvet and Finn climbed in too, with his hot water bottle. They lay curled close to me, just their beady eyes showing like a couple of cartoon clams.

We were reading
The Secret Garden.
The boys seemed captivated by the description of young Dickon and his pet lamb. When I closed the book, I felt Charlie stir.

‘We’ve got a lamb,’ he mumbled, his pride muffled by blanket and thumb. ‘You have.’

He snuggled a little closer, gossamer hair tickling my neck. Once they’d dropped off, I eased myself out and transferred Finn to his own bed. He muttered something as I covered him up, and flung out a small arm.

Sacha too seemed to be asleep, swaddled in her duvet; but as I was turning off the bedside lamp, I heard her voice. ‘Shut up.’

I looked round. She was sitting up. ‘What? I never said anything.’

‘Shut
up.
You’re doing my head in.’ She was staring fixedly over my shoulder. Spooked, I glanced behind me. A draught stirred the open curtains. The next moment she was screaming in terror, backing away up the bed.

‘What is it?’ I gasped. Her mouth was wide open, like a skull’s. ‘Sacha— what’s happened?’

‘D’you see it? D’you
see
it?’ She pointed at the window. ‘Oh my God, there’s something looking in! Oh my God, see the face?’

I looked, but could see only our two reflections in the black glass. It took all my courage to walk across and open the door. I searched up and down the balcony. There was no sign of life, though leaves rustled in the magnolia tree.

‘Nothing there,’ I said shakily, shutting and bolting the door behind me.

The next moment she was beside me, digging her fingers into my arm. ‘We’ve got to get out,’ she hissed. ‘They’re here.’

I’ll admit it: I sank half a bottle of pinot while I waited for Kit.

I phoned the Vargas. They were my staunch allies, a teenage girl and a dying woman. I needed allies. The father answered. Anita and Bianka were out for a walk, he said chattily. Seemed a funny thing to do on a winter’s night, but they’d rugged up warm. Was I Sacha’s mum? What a lovely girl. Shame they hadn’t seen much of her lately.

Then I wandered around the house, closing curtains and feeling lost. I decided to put off telling Kit about Sacha’s relapse. I wouldn’t talk about going back to England, either. Not tonight, when he was coming home so happy.

At five past ten, a car crossed the cattle grid.

Now, here’s a tip: reunions never live up to one’s expectations; it’s just a sad fact of life. This one was disastrous. I blame jetlag. I blame the awful secrets I was keeping. I blame stress and lack of sleep. I blame my half bottle of wine, and Kit’s temper. Whatever the culprit, the effect was catastrophic.

Kit was climbing stiffly out of the car when I hurled myself across the yard. He held out his arms and I pressed my face to his, luxuriating in his closeness.

‘Hey hey,’ he said, nudging my ear. ‘You’re not blubbing, are you?’

Bleater Brown spotted us, and began to bawl as we walked inside, arms around one another.

‘Tea, coffee, food?’ I asked. ‘Or just sleep?’

Kit was spaced out. His eyes looked bloodshot, his hair tousled. He dropped his car keys by the phone, yawning. ‘Um . . . how about one of your special frothy coffees? I’ll just nip upstairs, take a pee and kiss the children. Promise I won’t wake them.’

‘I wouldn’t go into Sacha’s room. She’s . . . best not to disturb her.’

While he padded upstairs I switched on the espresso machine. Bleater was still making her feelings plain, so I made up a bottle. I heard the phone as I was climbing into her pen, but it was cut off after four rings so I knew Kit had answered it. Probably his mother. Bleater gulped down her milk in record time, but I lingered to put more straw in her bed.

Kit’s call was over by the time I returned. He’d changed into a clean sweater.

‘I’ll froth your milk,’ I chirruped. ‘This is going to be the best Martha frothy-coffee special in the universe. Who was on the phone?’

‘Bianka.’

‘Oh?’

‘Oh.’ Kit looked immensely sad, his eyes turned down at the corners. ‘Bianka. Wanting news. She and Anita have been out looking all evening. They were wondering whether we’d heard from Sacha yet.’

‘Kit . . .’

‘She was very relieved when I told her I’d just seen Sacha upstairs, asleep. Says she and her mum were really scared. I asked why scared? She said well, you hear of people being murdered for supplying P on some other dealer’s patch. Those were her actual words, Martha.
Supplying P on some other
dealer’s patch.
What the fuck’s going on?’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘I’ll bet it is. You thought I didn’t need to know my stepdaughter’s a drug dealer?’

‘Courier.’

He exploded, kicking a chair across the room. ‘Jesus Christ! Are you going to quibble about the job title?’

‘No, but—’

‘A dealer under my roof, living with
my
sons! Finn and Charlie could find that shit lying around and wonder what it tastes like.’

‘Shh, Kit! Keep your voice down. The children—’

He didn’t keep his voice down. ‘Drug squad might smash the doors in any moment. A gang could come out here and torch our house. And you didn’t feel like telling me?’

‘You weren’t here to tell.’

He turned away, shaking his head. ‘This can’t go on, Martha.’

I felt cold. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean it can’t go on. I’ll never trust Sacha again. Now I find I can’t trust you either. One way or another, this must stop.’

One way or another . . .
It was fear inside me, undulating sinuously like an eel. But I hid it with a good old-fashioned cavalry charge. ‘You can piss off, if you’re going to be so sodding sanctimonious.’

‘Maybe I should piss off then.’

I poked my knuckles into his chest. ‘You’ve been home five minutes and already you’re throwing your weight around. I’ve carried this family single-handed through a horrific crisis. I think I deserve a medal, but no, apparently I deserve to be yelled at. You’ve had your head so far up your own backside this past year—you know nothing about how this whole immigration thing has been for the rest of us.’

‘This whole immigration thing was dandy until that girl—’ I screamed over him, ‘We came out here for you! We lost our home and our family and our country, for you! All because
your
career blew up and
you
couldn’t handle it.’ I punched him in the shoulder. ‘How dare you come in here and start preaching to me?’

‘I dare, because Finn and Charlie are my sons. I dare, because you haven’t kept them safe. And if I have to leave you and take them with me, then—so help me—I will.’