In Jeopardy (12 page)

I hired a car and will be out of town overnight.

He leaves the name and number of the place he is staying at.

When he returns from his out of town trip Christine fills him in with the drama that Thornton orchestrated.

He listens without interruption then asks, ‘Didn’t you think I’d care enough for you to at least tell me about your plans?’

‘I don’t want to involve you in the saga of my broken life. As this awful process unravels it’s becoming uglier and nastier than I imagined it would.’

‘I’m concerned about your situation. To put it bluntly – I’m worried about your state of mind.’

‘There’s no need to worry. I’m able to look after my own affairs. I have a solicitor to handle the grisly stuff.’

‘And that worries me.’

‘What exactly worries you?’

‘Thornton’s plan was rash and foolish. If you continue to act on this kind of advice you are on a hiding to nothing. You could end up in serious trouble. This lawyer of yours is a real wide boy.’
This whole episode was just an ego trip for this Thornton. Either way he can’t lose; he’s going to be paid no matter what.
Julian hasn’t met the man, but has an image of him as a dubious character.

‘I need a legal representative like Thornton. Without one, God help me. You don’t know Richard.’

‘Maybe I’ve been a bit harsh, but it would give me some peace of mind if I met your lawyer. I want to know that he’s looking after you during what’s a traumatic experience.’

‘Have you been through some similar kind of mess?’

‘Not exactly, but I’ve had my share of relationships that have ended badly.’

‘I never knew. Did you only ever give me the edited highlights of your life?’

‘Isn’t that what you’ve done?’
She’s always given the impression that Richard was charming and her relationship idyllic. It was one impressive cover story. It was either a perfect myth because he was so awful or she was so dazzled by him that she failed to see the real man.

‘Is that what you think?’

‘Does it matter what I think?’

‘I’m interested in your opinion.’

‘I’ve been reluctant to give it.’

‘Why?’

‘Years ago I warned Diana against making a foolish decision that I knew would end in tears. She ignored my warnings and there were more than tears.’

‘I’m surprised. She gives the impression that she is all too sensible to throw caution to the wind.’

‘She wasn’t always.’

‘Like what?’

‘I can’t betray a sworn secret. All I can say is that when the situation soured, she made me out to be the villain.’

As a nurse working in an Emergency Ward she could guess at Diana’s plight. Christine treated scores of girls who arrived at the hospital drunk and drugged up; victims of misadventure and predatory brutes. Most of these girls aren’t from unfortunate backgrounds or slatternly girls who invite trouble. Such violent encounters become secrets that imprint these girls with haunting memories. She has often wondered that when a patient dies from unknown causes that the catalyst has been from an earlier traumatic experience. How often has someone tormented by their past masqueraded to the world that their life is normal, even enviable, when it’s falling apart?

Was Diana the victim of sexual abuse? Had such a situation made her aloof and defensive?

Christine hid the skeletons from her own troubled life. Richard became a protector, his friends and social group became substitutes for her own estranged family. They tolerated her because she was Richard’s attractive wife.

The hospital, too, offers Christine a protective wall where friendship presents little risk. Colleagues like her, she’s easy company and they respect her commitment to her work and the patients. Over the past ten years Christine has lost contact with school and university friends. They would struggle to know her now. And this is how she prefers the situation to remain especially now.

Before she met Richard she was living with and engaged to Roland. They booked a world trip before getting married; buying real estate and having children compromised their freedom. Christine fell pregnant and Roland accused her of deliberately orchestrating it. He shouted, swore and smashed crockery against walls when she refused to terminate the pregnancy.

The trip went ahead without her. Before she left Roland repeatedly accused her of attempting to shackle him to a child he never wanted. Following her initial shock, she was relieved to discover that he was a beast of a man who hid behind a mask. The polite, university-educated man she was going to marry was an act, and a fraud.

Although each accusation and cruel words were knifes that struck her, this pain soon subsided when she left. What mattered was that she left an untenable situation. She sacrificed her deposit on the trip and considered this the price she had to pay to amputate herself from Roland.

One late afternoon, before he left for the trip they planned he waited at the hospital for her to finish work.

His unexpected appearance startled her.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I want to say goodbye before the trip – want to let you know there’s no hard feelings. How about I take you out for a meal? You look pale and hungry.’

She declined, suspecting he wanted to talk about the pregnancy. When further pressured she accepted. His pleas for her to abort the child failed. After the meal he offered to drive her back to the hospital and her car. It was a long walk back to work, but still early evening. Although she wanted to stretch her legs and mull over all that happened over their meal, he persuaded her to accept his offer.

Once in the car, he locked her in.

A gloomy silence pervaded the car followed by him fastening a pitying look over her. She turned away. He slapped her hard across the face. The side of her face stung red hot. As her eye welled up with tears blurring her sight, he wrenched her from the passenger seat in the car pressing her to him
in a vice like grip. He spat the words into her ear, his gravelly voice drunk and cruel, ‘I’ll shut you up for good. You’re gonna pay for ambushing me – bitch!’

Christine’s senses returned and she wriggled to free herself. Finding her voice she screamed incoherent howls of terror before he shut her mouth with his hand. ‘Shut it – slag.’

As he blindfolded her, she screamed again and struck out with her arms. He slapped her face. ‘If you don’t shut up I’ll slice you up.’ He ignored her pleas to let her out and drove her to a place beyond the suburbs. When she screamed he turned up the radio to drown out her voice. The car slammed to a halt, he opened the door, pushed her out of the car and out of his life. She heard an object hit the ground, tyres skid on unmade road and the car drive away, becoming fainter until it disappeared.

The ground was cold and damp. When she removed the blindfold she was surrounded by darkness. She heard insects twitter, nocturnal creatures scurry through the foliage and the hoot of a solitary owl. As her eyes adjusted to the surroundings she saw a ghostly light. She had slipped the blindfold off easily. Despite being hurled from the car she was unhurt and when she stood up she brushed dirt and stones that clung to her clothes. It was difficult to see more than a few metres ahead.

She took tiny steps before stumbling over a soft rubbery object that she initially thought was the body of a dead animal. When she kicked it with her foot she heard metal clink. She reached down, touched the object and discovered it was her bag.

She found her keys, flicked on the mini-torch attached to the key ring, shone the light into her bag and pulled out her phone. She used the torch to light the path ahead of her in search of signs that would indicate where she was. Christine picked her way along uneven ground. Ahead she saw a wooden railing – most likely a car park. Beyond this another solitary and ghostly light shone, marking the edge of the road. She wrapped her cardigan tight against the icy night air.

At the road there were two signs. One read: Welcome to Batman National Park. That’s all she needed to know. She flicked on her phone and called an ambulance. As she waited the night air froze over her. Numb and cold she believed she would freeze to death in the wilderness.

When the paramedics arrived they asked questions. Christine’s pride and dignity were stripped bare and she was resolute that she wouldn’t explain. She fed them a tale about becoming lost and disoriented after undertaking an overambitious hike. She wanted to forget that night and vowed she’d never speak to a soul about what really happened. She instructed the team to take her to St Andrew’s and not North of the City where she worked. She was admitted to casualty where the whole process became a blur.

When she caught a shadowy glimpse of herself in a pane of glass she saw a faded figure in mud-streaked clothes. Although she had done nothing shameful she wanted to dissolve into nothingness. She treated enough assault victims, but could not comprehend being one herself.

A kindly nurse asked, ‘Can you tell me what happened tonight?’

‘No.’

The nurse asked again and Christine returned the same answer. This would remain her secret. She knew what happened that night would change everything and it did.

Days later she arranged for a termination, severing all ties with her life with Roland. She reasoned it was pointless to involve the police. The best they could do would be to charge him with assault. The evidence would most likely have been too flimsy to expect that the charges would stick.

By remaining silent Christine held the best card. She would forever remain a skeleton in Roland’s closet. He could push her from his mind, hoping she would remain at bay. Taking no action was her most powerful weapon. The past could only be silenced. Roland would hope it remained dormant and not explode at some unknown point in the future.

She built a fortress around herself, vowing she wouldn’t allow herself to be vulnerable again. She could take care of herself. As her family moved away she could not rely on them to pick up broken pieces. Julian the expatriate undertook dangerous missions to faraway places, forever living out of a suitcase. Diana forged a new life with her family in Nedlands, a well-heeled suburb in Perth. Christine married Richard to fill a gap in her life, and now he has gone.

Christine snaps back to reality. ‘I don’t wish to pry into Diana’s past. We all have secrets. Some of them wield a strange power over us.’ Her work exposed her to secrets that patients would never reveal to family and those they were most intimate with.

‘That’s a pretty grim view of the world.’

The past is dust and ashes, rising and transforming into a demon that hovers and becomes a waking nightmare. She worries that he has zeroed in on her troubled mind and intercepted her thoughts.

He has no idea what she is thinking and dares not delve to find out. However, it is obvious to him that she is emotionally paralysed. This explains why she has deflected his attempts to assist her.

‘You need a break from the hospital. It intrudes too much on your life.’

She holds his gaze without blinking. ‘No more than usual. No more than when I was with Richard.’

‘No – really – this situation will become untenable. You’re going to have to do something about it.’

‘I have to leave the hospital residence. Richard threatened to come after me. I can’t take any more of his violent outbursts.’

‘Don’t worry about him that’s all hot air – he wouldn’t be that stupid. My main concern is that you need to get away from that place – Richard or no Richard.’

Julian has uncovered a part of Christine’s life that is under lock and key and tried to prise it open. Now that she is free from Richard she is not about to reveal details of their relationship. Julian doesn’t need to know that she turned a blind eye to Richard’s affairs; that she colluded with him by tolerating them and that her work was a safe haven from the torment he caused.

She doesn’t need to admit that she remained shackled to a stunted man who is little better than a spoilt nasty child. She rationalises that Julian doesn’t need to know that she is little better than Richard. And since he has thrown her out of his life she believes she is worthless. All that remains is her work.

Julian is right; she lives in an anaesthetised state of existence, where she has shut the world out and slammed the door on relationships. Diana and her family, Julian, even Thornton, have shown Christine kindness and this has washed over her almost unnoticed. Half-ashamed, she wonders:
Had I dismissed them without thought or appreciation? Was Julian too polite to express offence?
Christine expects Julian is about to wash his hands of her – dismissing her as a waste of time.

‘We can check you into the hotel today.’

‘I can stay for a few days; a week at most, before the expense eats into my bank balance.’

‘Did the creep leave you penniless?’

‘Technically, I left him.’

‘Don’t make excuses for him.’

‘I have enough income to fund my shrinking lifestyle.’

She catches a flash of the life she was accustomed to. They were driving through the hills in Richard’s Lexus. This is a casualty of her changed circumstances and a raw memory of her privileged, middle-class existence. She was flung from the safety of their stately double-storey home set in a leafy green street.

She fled to the hospital, remained there for too long, unable to renegotiate a new life and move on. Did she remain in hospital residence waiting for Richard’s new romance to sour? She expected that before now he would have appeared at the hospital with a gift and pleaded, ‘Come home Christine, I miss you.’

She wouldn’t expect an apology, as he isn’t in the habit of expressing remorse for his actions. Supposing he presents at the hospital any day from now; she would reject his offer. After at least one failed attempt if Richard sent an exotic and expensive floral arrangement and pleaded that she return, she might consider his offer. She isn’t partial to cut flowers, but watching Richard grovel and beg for her to return would make her feel she has some power over him. More importantly, returning to Richard would mean that her status would be restored.