Nine Letters Long (24 page)

Evie holds her hand over her jaw as it starts to shake uncontrollably.

‘Hey,' Robin whispers to her, ‘you don't have to keep reading, sweetheart.'

It's only now Evie sees she's been clinging to her mother's arm. ‘I want to.'

‘It's in writing.' Evie and Robin look up. ‘It's on September 14th,' Paris says. ‘Two weeks before she died.'

Evie's fingers tighten around her mother's arm as she turns to September 14th. Robin glances at the entry. Two seconds max, it takes. Her voice is clipped as she says, ‘That's all you need, Paris. You have the bastard now.'

Evie forces herself to look at the page. To read the six tiny words scrawled in Caz's writing.

It's all there – every word.

‘Paris?' Robin walks over to where she sits and crouches at her feet. ‘Is it, is it happening to …'

Paris nods. A tear slides from the corner of her eye. Quickly she wipes it away and nods again.

‘Okay.' Robin speaks slowly. ‘I think this is what we should do.' Evie comes over, joining her mother next to Paris. She needs to be near her. She needs her to cushion the darkness she feels around her. To cradle Evie in her arms and tell her the world isn't always this bad. ‘I'll ring Victoria,' Robin continues. ‘She'll be able to contact your mum. What this man has done, Paris, is very, very wrong. He can be put in jail for this.'

‘Mum wanted us to be comfortable,' Paris whispers while her tiny body begins to shake like a rag doll. No control. No expression. Just a sack of limbs twitching on the couch. ‘She didn't want us to be hungry, not like she was.' Evie watches, feeling the most enormous pain soar through her innards. ‘If we told her, Ingy would take it all away. That's what he said. He said he'd ruin everything.'

The realisation is difficult. Caz's fear of Ingy was greater then her fear of dying. So she hid from him in that cupboard. Unable to breathe. Unable to call for help.

‘He can't hurt you any more, Paris,' Robin is telling her.
‘He can't threaten you or intimidate you. You're safe now. You can say what he did without fear. It's okay now. It's over. All over.'

 

Commotion bursts through the living room in the form of Nora Cuza. She is shaking her arms over her head, the gold bracelets jingling in time with each word.

‘Paris! What do you think you're doing? Get up! We're going home. I'm getting you …' Her nostrils flare and her eyes flash with fury. ‘Away from that … that …'

‘Nora!' Victoria is behind her. ‘Nora,' she says a little more calmly. ‘You have to speak to Paris, you must listen –'

‘Up, girl! Now!' Nora screams over Victoria's voice. ‘Now!' Paris starts to get off the couch. ‘Ingy!' she bashes the buttons on her mobile. ‘Ingy, get off the phone!'

‘No Ingy!' The words burst from Evie's mouth.

Nora spins on her spiked heels. ‘You! You are the cause of this. You –'

‘How dare you speak to my daughter like that!' Robin's hands shake as she takes hold of Evie's shoulders. ‘You have no idea what she's been through trying to help your daughter. This has been brought into my home and you will sit here and listen to what Victoria has to say if you're a half-decent mother. Which I have my doubts about!'

Nora lunges at Robin and Evie. Hysterically, her hands wave and grab as her long red claws try to rip a piece out of them. ‘
Fire-ai al draculi! Fire-ai al draculi!' she
shrieks.

Victoria rushes to hold her back. ‘Nora! Nora!' she calls, unable to be heard over the screams. ‘Stop that. Stop it!'

But Nora is strong. Robin and Evie squeal as the crazy arms and legs kick and hit, backing them up against the couch where Paris is sitting.

‘
Fire-ai al draculi! Fire-ai al draculi!' she still curses, the
spit now foaming out of her mouth. ‘
Fire-ai al–'

It happens so fast. Paris leaping off the couch, her bony leg flying out in front of her, kicking the back of her mother's knees. Stunned, they watch Nora topple to the ground, lying on the floor in a heap of defeat.

‘Mamma,' Paris cries, kneeling on the carpet next to her. ‘Mamma.' The tears are spilling down her face. ‘Evie is not the devil. Ingy, he's not your
inger
. Ingy is the devil. Please, Mamma, please. I know you just wanted us to have a good life but Ingy is not your angel, Mamma.'

Robin and Victoria help Nora up onto the couch. Her eyes flick around the room as though she's not sure how she got there or even where she is. All you can hear is her breath, puffing and wheezing.

‘Nora,' Victoria says in the gentlest of voices. ‘Nora, there's something Paris has to show you. It's Caz's diary. You need to see it.'

From under the cushion of the couch, Paris brings it out. Nora looks at the little green diary in her daughter's hands and her face begins to crack. Soon, a moan, deep with pain, rises from the very depths of her soul. ‘My baby, my baby,' she wails. ‘The diary … where, Paris? Where?' And she sinks into the couch.

Evie curls up against her mother and puts her head in her lap and watches them. Watches Paris and her mother leaf through the pages of Caz's last months. There are screams and tears and sounds of agony that no words can describe. Evie knows she will never forget that sound. She picks up her mother's hands and places them over her ears. She's heard enough. She doesn't need to hear it any more. Evie's job is finished.

 

The next few days Evie spends at home. She's not quite ready to go back to school. Her mind craves silence and her body craves sleep.

The night after, as Evie lies curled up on the couch with her dad, he asks how it feels, right now. Right at this very moment.

‘Like I've run a marathon,' she answers. ‘Not that I ever have, but I think this is what it'd feel like. But it's like my mind has run one as well. My head aches just like my body does.' Then Evie sighs. ‘Am I weird, Dad?'

‘You're my daughter!' he scoffs. ‘How could you be weird?'

‘You know what I mean.'

‘You're special, Evie. I know to you it doesn't always feel like that, but you are. If it wasn't for you, imagine what Paris'd still be going through. There was no avenue for her until Caz found you. She said that herself – once we'd all calmed down, that is. You freed her. That's something I want you to keep reminding yourself.'

‘No thanks.'

‘You know what I mean.'

‘I wonder if Nora knew what was going on?'

‘I don't think so, darling,' her dad sighs. ‘It seems she was so wrapped up in her business and making money that she didn't see much at all.'

‘Maybe she chose not to see.'

‘Who knows how people work, Evie. Obviously what drove Nora was her past – being hungry, poor, displaced, all that stuff. It can make people do strange things in the eyes of people like us who haven't been through such things,' Nick says. ‘I'm not excusing her. Not for a second. I guess as a parent, I need to try and understand it too.'

‘Yeah, but not even knowing Caz was pregnant when she died.' It's not a question. It's something Evie just can't believe – that a mother would choose not to know how her daughter spent her last minutes. ‘I mean, not wanting to even look at the coroner's report and stuff. I'd want to know all that.'

‘You don't know,' Nick says. ‘We all deal with grief differently. For Nora, it was not wanting anything to do with coroner's reports and autopsies. She just handed it all over to Ingy. That was the way she coped. I don't think that meant she had suspicions and didn't want to know. I think it was just her … grief, at losing her precious daughter.'

‘It was very convenient for him.'

‘Well, it's over now, honey. Regardless of what we think about Nora, she took it straight to the cops,' he says. ‘He's already been charged and will most likely go to jail for quite a while. He won't be doing it any more.'

Evie yawns, stretching her long legs over the arms of the lounge. ‘I know it's not even eight-thirty but I think I'll go to bed.'

‘Am I banished to the couch again?' he asks.

‘Do you mind?' Evie frowns. ‘I just really need to sleep with Mum at the moment. I know I haven't done it for at least ten years. But I just, well, I don't know why.'

‘You're catching up on some lost time. That's all.' Nick smiles. ‘And I know your mother's loving it.'

‘You can have your bed back tomorrow,' Evie tells him. ‘Goodnight. And thanks, Dad.'

‘Thanks?'

‘Well, you're pretty cool most of the time.' She kisses his forehead. ‘Just promise never to embarrass me in front of Seb again.'

 

If Evie's not sleeping, she's staring at the TV or wandering the house. If her parents aren't home, she lets the answering machine screen all calls. The energy it would take to speak to Nora or Paris is something she just doesn't have.

Instead, she needs their pain to drain from her body. Every last little drop so she can face the days and get on with life. If she could do it after Adelaide, then she can do it now. It would be so easy to sink into their darkness with them. To hold on to their anger and help them fight the battle. But that's not what Evie wants. She wants her life back. She wants to step out of their darkness back into the light.

 

The phone rings. The ever-familiar recorded voice on the answering machine clicks to life. Evie waits to hear who it will be. There's one person she still hasn't spoken to. Well, two, actually, but that second conversation will be difficult.

‘Evie? Hey.'

It's him. Evie runs to the phone. ‘Hi,' she says, a smile pulling at her cheeks. ‘Hi. I'm sorry I haven't called.'

‘I thought you probably needed a few days,' Seb answers. ‘And Poppy filled me in, anyway. Full on, eh? It's been an epic time for you, Evie. You probably don't really want to talk about it.'

‘Later, yeah? Just not at the moment,' Evie replies. ‘I've got to try and put it all away in my own head first.'

‘I know what you mean.'

‘Are you … okay … Seb?'

‘'Course. I wouldn't have had it any other way. But I didn't have to go through what you did.' The gentleness in his voice makes Evie weak at the knees. ‘Are you okay? Really?'

‘Yeah, I am. It's just so good for it to be over. At least for me. Paris is … having to face it all.'

‘She was such a weird chick. No wonder.'

‘Yeah.'

‘When are you coming back to school?'

‘Next week. Then exams start the week after that.'

‘Then holidays!'

‘Seb, I haven't said thank you.'

‘Yes you have.'

‘Well, I want to say it again. Thank you. I couldn't have done it without you, Seb.'

There's a flash of silence.

‘Evie?'

‘Yeah?'

‘Do you want to do something with me?' Seb asks. ‘Like go out somewhere. A movie maybe?'

‘I'd love to. I really would.'

‘You sure?'

‘Of course I'm sure!' Evie laughs.

‘Great. So a movie?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Which one?'

‘What about that burping, farting movie with those two guys. What's it called?'