Truly Madly Guilty

  'What happened here?' the policewoman said to Tiffany. She pointed with her foot at the broken crockery on the pathway leading from the back door. There were dangerous-looking shards and chunks of broken blue china everywhere. Tiffany had loved those blue plates.

  'Oh,' said Tiffany. She tried to imagine this scene through the policewoman's eyes. Did it look like a crime scene? Did she think there had been a fight? Or that they had all been drunk? The policewoman had already spoken to Vid, so presumably she already knew exactly what had happened. She was double-checking their stories, making sure everything matched up. It made Tiffany nervous.

  'Our guest, Erika - our next-door neighbour - she was carrying plates from inside, and I think that's when she realised that Ruby was in the fountain ...' Tiffany's voice broke. She thought of Ruby's squat little toddler body, her blonde curls. 'And then I think she dropped them, because she ran to pull her out.'

  What had Tiffany been doing? She'd been distracting Ruby's parents. She'd made them forget they were parents.

  'It happened so fast,' she told the policewoman.

  'Unfortunately it's not an unusual scenario,' said the policewoman. 'Children drown in plain sight surrounded by people. It's silent. It's fast. Lack of parental supervision is the most common cause of drownings.'

  'Yes,' said Tiffany. She wanted to say, No, you don't understand. We're not those kind of people. We were supervising them. Just not then. Just not at that moment. It was silent. It was fast. For one moment they all looked away.

  Tiffany thought of her older sisters. She could never tell them about this. 'For fuck's sake, Tiffany,' they would say, because the Collins girls took pride in their down-to-earth practicality. Their common sense. They were from the western suburbs and proud of it. They didn't make mistakes like that. They'd be distressed that something like this could happen at their own little sister's house. They'd relate it to money. To her bloated bank account. They wouldn't pull their punches.

  If they ever learned that she'd been pretending to give the child's mother a lap dance at the time it happened they would be united in their horror. Tiffany's dancing career still mystified and shamed them. 'Just thinking about you in that trashy club makes me sick to my stomach,' her sister Emma, the dramatic one of the family, liked to say, all these years later, and she wasn't actually being dramatic, she meant it, it really did make her sick to her stomach. 'She was a disgrace to the sisterhood,' agreed Louise, who had recently discovered feminism, and she meant it too. But their words had slid straight off Tiffany as if she were made of Teflon. Their words would stick now, even if her intentions had never been more innocent, because the safety of a child trumped everything, as it should.

  Tiffany looked up as the frantic, dramatic sound of chopping helicopter blades suddenly filled the air. 'Is that helicopter ... for us?'

  'Yep, that's for us.' The policewoman looked up too, and took a radio out of her trouser pocket. 'Excuse me.'

  She hurried off.

  'Where's it going to land?' said Tiffany to herself. The helicopter hovered over them like a giant bird and the sound intensified. Out of the corner of her eye she saw poor Barney streak across the yard to escape the loud noise.

  'Mum!' Dakota appeared by her side in the backyard, her eyes big and wide. She held her book in her hand, her finger still marking the page. 'What happened? Why is there a helicopter here? I heard the ambulance before but I didn't think it was for us.'

  Tiffany put her arm around her and pulled her close, wanting to feel her skinny little body for a moment. She had forgotten all about her up until now. 'Ruby fell in the fountain. She nearly drowned.'

  Dakota immediately pulled away from her hug and grabbed Tiffany's arm. She said something, but Tiffany couldn't hear her over the increasing volume of the helicopter.

  She saw Vid at the end of the path that led down the side of the house, gesturing for her to come out the front. He had yet another policeman with him. He wouldn't like that. Vid had a police phobia. One of his greatest, genuine but amusing fears was going to jail for a crime he didn't commit. 'Innocent people go to jail every day,' he often told Tiffany, completely straight-faced, as if it were more likely than not that this could happen to him. It made him excessively law-abiding. He'd paid far too much tax until Tiffany had taken over his financial affairs. He still wanted to throw extra money at the tax man just in case.

  'Daddy needs me. Go and wait in the house!' she yelled at Dakota. 'Everything is fine.'

  Dakota grabbed at Tiffany's arm again, pinching the flesh too hard. Tiffany shook her off. 'Later!' she yelled. 'Go!'

  Dakota ran off, shoulders rounded, her face in her hands, and Tiffany thought impatiently, Jeez Louise, I don't have time for this Dakota, it's not about you.

  chapter fifty-four

  Tiffany and Vid listened to the rain and stared dully at the crash site on the kitchen floor created by the dropped jar of chocolate nuts.

  'You wouldn't think there'd have been that much glass in that jar,' said Vid.

  'Or that many nuts,' agreed Tiffany. 'We're okay, Dakota!' she called out. 'Just in case you're wondering! Your dad dropped a jar!'

  There was silence. Tiffany could just make out the hum of the television beneath the rain.

  'Nobody is hurt!' called out Vid. 'We don't need any help!'

  There was a pause. 'Okay!' called back Dakota in a magnificently dismissive tone.

  Tiffany and Vid smiled at each other.

  'I should have guessed why she was behaving so strangely,' said Tiffany. 'It's so obvious to me now that she would blame herself.'

  'You kept telling me there was something wrong,' said Vid. 'But why didn't she just tell us how she felt before today?' He lowered his voice, although there was no chance Dakota could overhear. 'Why keep it all bottled up like that? That's not good.'

  'It sounds like she was worried that we blamed her too. She seemed to think we were angry with her.'

  'Crazy!' said Vid angrily.

  'I know. Well, we were upset, obviously, and distracted, and that's what children do. They assume they're to blame for everything. So everything we did she misinterpreted.'

  'But she wasn't even there when it happened!'

  'That's the point.' Tiffany tried not to show her impatience. Vid had been there too when Dakota had sobbingly explained exactly why she thought everyone blamed her for Ruby's accident, but he was so busy throwing up his hands in disbelief he hadn't listened properly to a word she'd said. 'She got it into her head that Clementine believed Dakota was in charge of the kids. I mean, we did keep telling her she was such a good babysitter.'

  'Yes, but -'

  'I know,' said Tiffany. 'Of course Clementine and Sam wouldn't blame her. No one blames her. She's ten years old, for God's sake. We all knew she'd gone inside to read her book. If anyone was to blame in this family, it was me. I was the one offering lap dances to our guests.'

  'Stop that,' said Vid quickly, predictably. He'd shut down every conversation like this since the barbeque. 'It was a terrible accident.'

  Yeah, talk about keeping things bottled up. No wonder Dakota thought that what had happened at the barbeque was a shameful secret. They'd never said a word to her about it! That must have seemed so strange and freaky to the poor kid. Of course she thought it was about her.

  She remembered how the week directly after the barbeque she'd been so preoccupied with work. That bloody townhouse that had been nothing but trouble from the start had got passed in at auction, and the Land and Environment Court decision hadn't gone her way. It had been a shit week all round, and beneath all that stress was the absolute horror of what had happened. She hadn't given Dakota a thought. Not a single thought. Dakota had just been another job to cross off her list. As long as she had her uniform and lunch and was safely deposited at school, then the job was done. Vid had been the same. It had been a shit week for him too. He'd lost that government contract, which had turned out to be a blessing in disguise but he hadn't known that then
. By the time Vid and Tiffany had emerged from their fogs and started talking properly to Dakota again, the damage was done. The poor kid interpreted their re-emergence as her parents forgiving her.

  Forgiving her!

  'I'll get the dustpan,' said Vid. 'Don't move. You have bare feet.'

  He went to get the dustpan and broom.

  Tiffany watched Vid's massive shoulders as he crouched down, carefully sweeping up the glass and nuts. She thought about secrets and the damage they did.

  'I recognised one of the parents at the school today,' she said.

  'Oh yeah, who was it?' Vid kept sweeping.

  'From my dancing days,' said Tiffany.

  Vid looked up. 'Is that right, eh?'

  'One of my regulars,' said Tiffany. 'Sort of a friend really. A nice guy.'

  'Good tipper?' asked Vid.

  'Great tipper,' said Tiffany.

  'Excellent,' said Vid.

  'He booked a lot of private shows,' said Tiffany carefully.

  'Good for him,' said Vid. 'The man had great taste.' He studied the floor carefully and continued sweeping up the tiny fragments of glass.

  'Vid,' said Tiffany. 'Come on. It's a bit ... uncomfortable, isn't it? Standing on the netball courts next to a guy who saw your wife strip?'

  'Why should I be uncomfortable?' He looked up at her from the floor. 'I'm proud of you. I probably wouldn't want to see his wife strip. Did you sleep with him?'

  'I never slept with any of them,' said Tiffany. 'You know that.'

  Vid studied her thoughtfully. 'Well then, so what is the big deal?' he finally said. 'You weren't a hooker.'

  'But it's a prestigious private school. To some of those women there's probably not much difference between a dancer and a hooker. If word gets out, if he tells his wife ...'

  'He's not going to tell his wife,' said Vid. He stood up and moved to another corner of the floor where the nuts had rolled.

  'He might tell his wife, and then all the girls will find out, and Dakota will get bullied and that will lead to depression and that will lead to drug addiction.'

  'That drug, ice, now that's a terrible drug,' said Vid. 'Let's tell her to stick to the nice drugs, the ones that make you feel mellow, not like you want to claw off your skin.'

  'Vid.'

  'He's not going to tell his wife,' said Vid. 'I would bet you a million dollars he doesn't tell his wife. And so what if he does? All the girls will say is, "Oh, Dakota, you're so lucky, your mum is very talented, very beautiful, very flexible." '

  'Vid.'

  'You did nothing wrong. Did you rob a bank? No, you did not. And if this thing you're worried about happens, and it won't happen, but if it does happen that Dakota is unhappy, we pull her out of that school! Easy. We send her somewhere else. Come on now. Not every man in Sydney saw you dance. We'll find another school where no one knows you.'

  'Things aren't that simple,' said Tiffany.

  'They are if we want them to be,' said Vid. He swept up the final shards of glass and stood. 'You're getting yourself all worked up over nothing. You're finding catastrophes. It's like with grumpy old Harry next door ...'

  'That's not nothing,' said Tiffany. 'Our next-door neighbour dies and we don't even know. That's not nothing.'

  Vid shrugged. 'Okay, so what did Dakota say in the car today? We feel regret. Yes, we do. Sure we do. We feel regret over Harry. We should have visited him more, even when he slammed the door in our faces. And if you want, you can feel regret over your dancing, even though you were good at it and you liked it and you didn't hurt anyone, and you made a lot of money, you know, so I think, good for you, but okay, if you want, you feel regret. Just like we feel regret over little Ruby, you know, of course we do. We all feel terrible. We all wish that things had been different. We wish that very much. We wish - I wish - I'd never invited those people in the first place and I wish I'd kept a better eye on those little girls, so that every time I walk into my own backyard I don't have to remember ...'

  He stopped. His mouth worked as if he were chewing on a tough piece of steak.

  'I'll never forget her little white face,' said Vid finally. He'd got control of his voice but his eyes were very bright. He held the blue dustpan full of chocolate nuts and glass tightly in his hand. 'Her blue lips. The whole time I was calling the ambulance, I was thinking to myself, It's too late. It's too late. She's gone.'

  He turned away and Tiffany closed her eyes briefly.

  A speeding ticket had arrived last week and she'd recognised the date immediately. A camera must have picked her up going over the limit when she'd driven Clementine to the hospital. She would never forget that drive. It was like a nightmare that stayed with you forever. She and Clementine had experienced that together. It was not right that Tiffany and her family be cut cleanly from Clementine's life.

  She thought of Dakota and how she'd buried her groundless remorse so deep she'd become an eerie ghost of herself.

  'Right,' she said. She felt suddenly very, very angry. 'Where are the keys? We're going out.'

  chapter fifty-five

  The day of the barbeque

  Tiffany registered the sudden, eerie, whisper-quietness of her neighbourhood. The police and the paramedics and the helicopter had all left. Sunday night in the suburbs. Time for homework and ironing and 60 Minutes.

  It was dark now. The streetlights were on. They stood in the front yard. Tiffany was about to drive Clementine to the hospital. She had her car keys ready in the palm of her hand. Only one parent had been allowed to go in the helicopter with Ruby and Sam had gone, which meant Clementine had to get to the hospital on her own.

  'I'll drive myself,' said Clementine now. She must have been running fingers through her hair, because it stood out in a mad halo around her head, like she'd had an electric shock.

  'No, you won't. You're probably over the limit anyway,' said Tiffany.

  'Haven't you been drinking?' said Clementine.

  'I only had one light beer,' said Tiffany.

  'Oh,' said Clementine. She chewed her lip and Tiffany saw that she'd drawn blood. 'Right.'

  The plan was for Oliver and Erika to take care of Holly, just Oliver really, because Erika was clearly not quite right, although she'd finally stopped shaking.

  'I'll get these two ladies onto the couch with a DVD and some popcorn,' said Oliver. The poor man was still in wet clothes himself.

  Clementine suddenly threw her arms so violently around Oliver she nearly knocked him off balance. 'I haven't even said thank you,' she said into his chest. 'I haven't even thanked you both.' Her voice was so full of raw emotion it was almost painful to hear.

  She reached an arm out to Erika, to hug her too, but Erika stepped away. 'Fix your hair, Clementine,' she said. She smoothed down the strands of hair around Clementine's face with both hands. 'You'll scare Ruby. You look like a witch.'

  'Thanks,' said Clementine with a shaky breath. 'Right.'

  She bent down to Holly's height. 'You be a good girl for Erika and Oliver, okay? And, um, you might get to stay with Grandma tonight!'

  'Hooray!' said Holly. She stopped. 'And Ruby too?'

  'I think it will be just you tonight, Holly,' said Clementine. She looked up at the sky where the helicopter had just disappeared and pulled her cardigan tighter around her. Holly stared up at her mother and her lower lip trembled.

  'Let's go, Holly,' said Oliver, taking her hand. He looked at Tiffany. 'Er. Thank you for your hospitality, Tiffany. Vid.'

  Vid slapped him on the shoulder. 'Mate.'

  Oliver hurried Holly off down the driveway, telling her about the movie they were about to see.

  'You'll call us?' Erika put her hand on Clementine's arm, and Tiffany could see that this was her version of a hug. Her sister Karen was exactly the same.

  'I can't believe she's in that helicopter right now.' Clementine stared at the sky. 'I should have been the one to go with her, not Sam. I don't know why I let him go - what if, what if ...'

  'Snap
out of it,' said Erika. 'Who cares who went in the helicopter? She's sedated. She won't even remember it. Off you go. Do I need to slap you across the face?'

  'What?' Clementine blinked. 'No!'

  'So call us, okay?' said Erika.

  'Of course I'll call you,' said Clementine snippily.

  They really were like sisters.

  As Erika followed Oliver and Holly down the driveway, in bare feet, her wet shoes in her hand, Vid came from inside with Tiffany's wallet, followed by Dakota.

  'Well. So. We hope little Ruby is all good, back to her little monkey self in no time. I'm sure she will be,' said Vid to Clementine. 'You have private health cover, right? Tell them you want the best doctors. No trainees.'

  Poor Vid. He didn't shine at times like these. Tiffany could see the tension in his shoulders, as if he were squaring up for a fight. It was like his entire body resisted negative emotion.

  Clementine studied Vid. Her face twisted with some unreadable emotion.

  'Yes,' she said formally. 'Thank you.' She looked at Tiffany. 'Can we -'

  'Of course,' said Tiffany. She pointed the remote on her key ring at the garage door to open it, and as she did she saw Dakota bravely open her mouth and start to say something to Clementine, but Clementine walked straight past Dakota, her eyes on the car, clearly desperate to get to the hospital as fast as she could.

  chapter fifty-six

  'I'm just going to pop over next door for a moment,' said Erika to Oliver when she got home. 'My psychologist thinks the best way to get my memory back is to "return to the scene of the crime", so to speak.'

  'There was no crime,' said Oliver thickly. He was up and dressed and sucking on a cough lolly.

  'It's a figure of speech,' said Erika. 'That's why I said, so to speak.'

  'I don't think Vid and Tiffany are home at the moment,' said Oliver. 'I saw their car leave as you were coming in.'

  'I know. I saw it too. I'd actually rather go over when they're not there,' said Erika. 'Less distracting.'