The Cry (4 page)

Was there a lay-by? Or did they just park at the side of the road? A cross, wasn’t there a cross about ten feet ahead? Were there really no towns or buildings in sight? Just the straight road behind them and the straight road ahead with black, ominous sky looming over its horizon?

Lorries, weren’t there a lot of them? More than usual? What was usual? Passing lorries made the car shake, didn’t they? Or was it just that one truck – Coles? – that rocked their four-wheel drive from side to side?

Did Alistair take the mobile phone out of his jeans pocket before he got out of the car, or after? Before? Was it already switched on? When did he notice there was no signal? Did he say:
Joanna, I can’t get a signal so I’m going to walk over there
?

How long did it take him to walk from his side of the car to the fence? Ten seconds? Twenty? Did he say anything as he walked? Did he look at her?

What was she looking at? Him?

The cross ten feet ahead?

Her image in the mirror? Was she looking tired? Ugly? Was she really thinking about her looks?

She didn’t turn and look at the back seat?

Why not?

Was it hard to hear Alistair when he yelled that he was going to climb the fence and walk further into the field? Was her window down? When had she opened her window? Why? To hear Alistair?

How did she know he still couldn’t get a signal? Did he yell from the field?

Before she opened the car door to get out, did she turn around and look in the back seat? Why not?

Was it hot when she got out? Did she notice the wall of heat? Yes – Why? No – Why not?

Was it her suggestion that Alistair should try her phone?

When she walked towards the boot to show him where it was, what did she see on the way?

Did she divert her face from the back seat deliberately?

Did she open the boot? Or was it Alistair?

Did she unzip the small black suitcase?

From the back of the car, could they see into the back seat?

When Joanna closed the boot and walked along the side of the car, did she look in the back window?

Did she?

No?

Why not?

When Joanna opened the front door and sat sideways on her seat, legs out of the car, and stretched, was she feeling happy? Stretches are happy things, yeah?

Was it a lorry beeping its horn that made her wonder how on earth he was sleeping through this racket?

How long did it take for her to decide that she should maybe check on him?

Twenty seconds? Ten?

Why so long?

Where was she when Alistair asked her how to turn her bloody phone on? Standing at the side of the car?

When Joanna said:
Just hold down the button on the bottom right for three seconds
, had she looked in the back seat?

When Joanna asked Alistair:
How long has he been sleeping
, was she panicking?

When Alistair told her it must be five hours now, what went through her head?

Which one of them said this:
He’s never slept so long in his life
?

Which one said:
It must be the Calpol
?

As Joanna knelt on the back seat and gently pushed the blanket away from her baby’s face, was she trembling?

What was Alistair saying? That her phone was out of bloody juice? Was that it? Did another lorry beep? Was the car shaking?

What did his face feel like? Can she remember that? The feel of his face? How would she describe it now? Cold? How did her fingers feel? His flesh on her fingertips? Like ice? Ice cold? Is that how she’d describe it? Was Alistair aware of anything other than the phones? Was he still barking at her about the fucking phones? Was he at the back of the car, or at the side? Could he see her face? If he could, would her face have told him? Was he yelling at her, saying:
You should have charged the phone Joanna
?

Was the belt stuck? Jammed or something? Why did it take her so long to unbuckle? Or didn’t it? Did it just seem long? Was it then that Alistair asked her if there was a charger in the car? When Joanna lifted him, how did she hold him exactly? Did she support his head? Or did she not bother? If she didn’t bother, she must have known, yes? Is this when Alistair finally stopped the phone tantrum and asked if everything was okay? Why now? Had he seen her face?

Was she gentle when she put Noah on the ground?

Was the ground rocky?

Should she have put him on the ground?

What did she feel when she placed her cheek against his mouth?

Did she whisper this?
Noah! Noah!

Shake him?

Yell this?
Alistair!

How far away was Alistair when he dropped the phone and ran towards her? No more than four feet?

How long did she press her fingers against his neck?

How would she describe the feel of his neck?

How many times did Joanna say:
Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God No
?

How many times did she say:
Please, please, Noah, cry
?

A heavily tattooed and goatee-bearded fifty-something fidgeted in the witness stand. ‘Yes, I saw them.’

‘You were driving from Frankston to Geelong?’ Amy Maddock had turned on the female charm for the beefy truck driver. She changed posture and position according to the witness, Joanna noted. For this porn-hungry thug, she crossed one leg slightly in front of the other and lowered her head, all demure and girly.

‘Yeah.’

‘Could you describe what you saw?’

‘I was goin’ at a hundred k, so not much.’

‘But you did see this woman?’ She gestured towards Joanna with a soft voice and tiny smile.

‘Yes, she was sittin’ on the side of the road or somethin’, kinda kneelin’. Looked like she was yelling and screamin’ or something, her head up all angry.’

‘Did you see anything else?’

‘Just Alistair Robertson. He was standing over her. She looked aggro to me.’

‘But you didn’t see anything else? The baby?’

‘No, just her, on the ground like I said, and him, standing over her. And her face angry, like she was yelling.’

‘But you didn’t see the baby?’

‘No.’

‘And you didn’t stop.’

‘Nah. They didn’t wave me down, so I figured it wasn’t car trouble. And she didn’t look dangerous to me, like crazy violent or anythin’, so I figured it was just a domestic, none of my business.’

There were no hills in this part of the world. Alistair jumped on the roof of the car and waved his phone at the sky, pleading with it for a signal, ‘Come on, come on!’

It was just as pointless, what Joanna was doing, but she couldn’t stop. ‘One, two, three, four, five,’ she counted, pressing two fingers crossed with two fingers onto Noah’s tiny chest – ‘One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five . . .’

Alistair was at the side of the road now, screaming when cars and trucks drove past: ‘Stop you arseholes, stop!’

‘One, two, three, four, five . . .’

‘We’ll drive to Geelong hospital.’ He was standing over her.

‘One, two, three, four, five.’

‘Joanna.’

‘One, two, three, four, five.’

‘Joanna.’

‘One, two, three, four, five.’

‘That’s enough.’

‘One, two, three, four, five.’

‘Joanna, stop now. Stop.’

‘One, two, three, four, five.’

‘FUCKING STOP!’

The next day, Joanna would notice two large bruises under each arm from where Alistair grabbed her and hauled her away from her son.

His voice came from a different place as he wrestled – from his teeth, it seemed: ‘Stop it. Stop it. Stop.’

She kicked him in the shin, struggling to be released. He would show her his bruises the following day.

‘He’s gone. He’s gone,’ Alistair said.

She tried to push Alistair away. ‘Let me go. Let me save him.’

‘Our baby’s gone. Noah’s gone.’ He managed to get both her arms behind her back, twisting them to restrain her. ‘Get in the car.’ He pushed her, forced her in, slammed the door and pressed the key to lock it. Face up against the window he said loudly: ‘Don’t move and don’t look. I’m going to put him in his seat and then we’re going to the hospital.’

She couldn’t not look. How dare he ask her not to?

Alistair picked up Noah, put him in the car-seat without doing up the belt, and shut the door.

‘Do up his belt! Do up his belt!’

He sighed, opened the back door again, lifted the left buckle, reached for the right, and struggled to press them together. ‘I told you to look away!’

She would not look away.

Alistair slammed the back door shut, opened his, and fell into the driver’s seat. ‘Turn your head to the front.’

She refused.

‘Turn around now.’

She was on her knees, reaching to the back, her hand on Noah’s little foot. ‘It’s so cold.’

She heard Alistair’s head bash against the steering wheel, followed by a groan.

‘His feet are so cold,’ Joanna repeated.

‘He died hours ago.’

This made Joanna turn around. ‘What?’

‘He’s been dead for hours.’ A thin line of spit connected Alistair’s open mouth and his knee. She’d never seen him cry, so she wasn’t sure if this was what he was doing. No noises, no tears, just dribble.

‘Why would you say that? We’d have noticed.’

‘We’ve been too terrified to look at him in case we woke him up. It’s rigor mortis‚ Joanna.’ His tone was worse than angry. Venomous. Accusatory.

‘What?’

He pulled his head up and yelled. ‘He’s stiff, Goddam it!’

‘Stiff?’

‘You don’t get stiff for hours.’

‘You mean . . .’

‘What I mean, Joanna, is he died on the plane.’

She was on her way to hell. That’s why the sky ahead was getting blacker. Joanna calmed herself with the idea. She died and went to hell, that’s all – just as she knew she would, since the affair. Noah wasn’t dead. She was. It wasn’t real, just part of the hell she was going to, and deserved. ‘I died. I’m just on my way to hell, that’s all.’

‘We’re half an hour from Geelong.’ Alistair’s voice jolted her out of this wonderful alternative. ‘Please try and be quiet so I can concentrate.’

They had been driving for ten minutes. Shock, and the sound of the air conditioning, had transported Joanna to a better place than this. Hell. But now she was back in the passenger seat of some rental car with Alistair driving, and . . .

She turned round.

‘Noooo!’ Joanna rocked her head back and forth, hoping dizziness might swirl this into nothingness. Rock faster, back and forward, rub it out, take it away.

‘Cot death? Was it cot death?’ The rocking hadn’t worked.

‘Maybe.’ His voice was a little less venomous now, but only a little.

‘Or was there something really wrong with him? Was he sick? Is that why he always cried?’

‘Maybe.’

A rock and moan combination this time, before stopping suddenly: ‘He was constipated.’

‘Was he?’ Alistair’s ‘was’ was harsh, as if to say
I didn’t know that. You should have told me. Maybe if you’d told me . . .

‘I stopped telling you things like that because you said I should stop worrying about every little thing. Oh God, maybe he was crying because he was . . . because he was really sick and I missed it. I didn’t notice.’

‘Stop grabbing at me! We’ll crash. Try not to think now. We’ll talk at the hospital. Let’s just get to the fucking hospital.’

She settled on a tiny head rock motion as she could think more clearly this way. ‘Could he have been allergic to the Calpol I gave him?’

‘You didn’t give him Calpol.’

‘I did. About three hours before we landed.’

Alistair swerved to the side of the road and stopped the car with a skid. He yanked at the handbrake hard then turned to her. ‘What did you say?’

‘Why? What?’

‘When did you give him Calpol?’

‘Why? That’s not bad, is it? It was baby Calpol.’

‘How much?’

‘What?’

‘How much did you give him?’

‘The dose.’

Alistair opened his door and walked against the traffic to the back of the car. A lorry beeped and swerved, just missing him. He opened the boot. Joanna turned to see what he was doing, but all she saw was her baby. She stretched her hand out towards him, then retrieved it. She didn’t want to feel the cold. But little Noah! From where she was, he just looked like he was sleeping. She turned back and put her head in her lap.

Alistair got back in the car and slammed the door. He held one of the unlabelled hundred-millilitre bottles of liquid before her.

‘So you gave him a dose when I was asleep, yeah?’

‘Yes.’

‘Three hours before we landed.’

‘Yes.’

Alistair snatched the bottle back and looked at it.

He opened the door, ran to the boot again, and came back with the second bottle of liquid.

‘Oh no . . .’ Joanna said as he sat back in his seat, bottle in hand.

‘How many doses of antibiotics have you had since we left?’

‘One. You gave it to me in Dubai.’

Alistair put his finger on the rim of the bottle he had just retrieved and tasted a drip of the medicine. It had about the same amount of fluid missing as the first bottle. ‘This is the antibiotics.’

He opened the lid of the first bottle, touched the rim with his finger, and pressed his finger onto his tongue. ‘Strawberry. This is the Calpol.’

Alistair put the Calpol on the dashboard – to his left.

And the antibiotics on the dashboard – right.

‘I always taste it, Joanna.’ He paused, looked at the bottles, then turned to her: ‘Do you?’

In any relationship, the role of each partner is defined very quickly, Joanna’s counsellor told her in the first of her sessions. She booked the counsellor five weeks after she met Alistair, a week after he told her he was married. Unable to extricate herself from him, she felt confused and upset by her behaviour. She’d never hurt anyone before. She’d never lied either, apart from the occasional white one (
Of course I came!
). She’d always done the things she set her mind to. And she’d never felt ashamed of herself. Now she was so ashamed that she hadn’t told her best friend, and had paid thirty-five pounds to tell this overweight woman instead. Joanna listened to her counsellor, but she didn’t want to hear about ‘roles’. What she wanted was for the counsellor to say: ‘Affairs are okay. It’s society that’s fucked. You go for it girl. And stop feeling so Goddam guilty. On the continent, you’d be mocked for not taking a lover.’

But, no, the counsellor did not say this. From her velour armchair, she looked at Joanna with concern and spent the entire session talking about roles. ‘They are based on assumptions you make about each other’s characteristics,’ she said, ‘assumptions which are made almost immediately, which may well be wrong, and which are very difficult to unmake.’

Joanna thought about this after the session. It was true. By the time she and Alistair had finished their first meal together – he ordered for her, the fillet of pollock – the following assumptions had been poured, levelled and set.

And there you had them. Joanna and Alistair. Alistair and Joanna. From day one till now. And she was okay with that. It wasn’t bad, any of it. It worked. It would probably have worked for ever, if not for airport security.

She wasn’t sure why, but she never told Alistair about the counsellor.

Alistair helped Joanna’s limp, shaky body out of the car, and practically carried her to the small grass embankment at the side of the road. As she wobbled her way in a haze, she knew her plan to change the way they made decisions was just typical nonsense talk. She wasn’t good under pressure. She wasn’t a decision maker. Right now, she could barely breathe and walk, let alone think. The heat was choking her. She needed to vomit.

So, after Alistair held her hair while she was sick, after he lowered her down so her back was supported by the three-foot-high embankment; after he checked that passing cars could not see them and crouched down beside her; it was he who did the talking. And she who listened.

Because Alistair is someone you should listen to.