Bilgarra Springs (21 page)

A small smile briefly flashed across Aurora’s face. She wiggled around a bit and picked up the stick and started squiggling in the dirt again.

‘If you were in trouble with Pop you knew that you were in BIG trouble. He very rarely raised his voice and he never physically disciplined me in any way, he never needed to, one word was enough. Not that he was a gruff man, because he wasn’t, he just exuded this authority and commanded respect and for most people nothing else was necessary. Pop didn’t say much about Peter. I never asked what he thought and he never volunteered the information. Peter treated Pop with the respect due to any elderly member of the legal profession, but I can’t remember him ever doing or saying anything that showed a genuine liking for Pop. In my fourth year of uni, when we announced our engagement, all Pop asked was, ‘Are you sure?’ I replied that yes, I was, and that was the end of the conversation. I look back and realise how bloody stupid I was to assume I knew everything, but I guess that is the rock that most young people perish on. Pop lived to see me married, but about six months later he got pneumonia and that was the end. His body couldn’t take the stress of it and he died. That was before the abuse started with Peter. Although, it wasn’t too much later that it did start. I’m glad that he didn’t live to see that. I don’t think that I would have been able to successfully hide it from him. He read people incredibly well. Years of practice.’

Aurora dropped the stick and rested her hands on her knees, turning her face so that her cheek rested on her hands and she was looking at Callan.

‘Gran was a totally different kettle of fish. She hadn’t liked Peter from the start. He treated her with respect but there was always an undercurrent there that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. With the benefit of hindsight, I think that she could see through him right from the beginning and that’s why he went out of his way to little by little undermine my closeness with her. She didn’t say anything but I started coming home less, explaining it away by telling myself that studying and building my career were more important at that time, but really I was just avoiding the conflict that came with going home with Peter. There was never anything overt, it just felt like being stuck with two wild animals circling each other, waiting for the other to strike first and give an excuse for retaliation. When we announced our engagement, she didn’t tell me that Peter wasn’t what he portrayed himself to be, but like Pop, she did ask me if I was sure. She questioned me out of her love for me, but at the time, I thought that the sun rose and set in him and all it served to do was drive a small wedge between her and me. She said, ‘If you’re happy love, and this is what you want, then I’m happy.’ Although I could tell from the extreme sadness in her eyes that she was anything but happy. At our wedding, to be fair, she did try, she tried really hard to make it the most special day. Peter had not long graduated as a policeman, and I had started articles with a very prominent Brisbane law firm, so it was sort of a double celebration. The two of us starting a new chapter in our lives. Peter’s parents were nice people. The rot set in after Pop died. Gran was devastated; the man who had been at her side for nearly sixty years was gone. I was inconsolable for a while. Peter couldn’t understand it. That’s when the abuse started. It wasn’t physical to start with, just emotional. He turned everything around to make it appear that my actions were an intentional hurt to him. It was all about him. Then one night the phone rang while we were having dinner. It was Gran. I couldn’t not talk to her, she was so sad and lost still. Peter obviously thought that I had been on the phone too long, and that he was deserving of my attention now that he was home and he picked up my plate, still relatively full of dinner and hurled it against the wall. I quickly hung up the phone and when I got back to the table he slapped me hard across the face and stormed out of the room, leaving me clutching my cheek wondering what the hell it had all been about and then cleaning up the mess.’

Aurora paused for a second before continuing.

‘ The next time, I got home from the office a bit late due to some work on a high priority case that needed to be done, and we were meant to be going out. By the time I got home, we were already late. It wasn’t anything special that we were supposed to be attending, some public bonding session in the city. Nobody would have known whether we were there or we weren’t. He took it as a personal insult to him and started yelling that obviously his career wasn’t as important as mine and it ended when he walked past and punched me in the stomach. He kept on walking straight out the front door and went to the function on his own. I ended up in a crumpled heap in the hallway, unable to move for an hour or so. There were many other occasions when he attacked me, always aiming the blows at places on my body where the bruising wouldn’t show. He slipped up one day and broke my arm. He had it bent up behind my back, crushing me into the wall and he bent it a little too far and it snapped. He genuinely looked sorry, absolutely no excuse I know. He took me to the emergency department at one of the hospitals, can’t remember the exact name, and I concocted some fantastic story about tripping and falling across the coffee table etc. I don’t think they believed me, but Peter was in uniform and who in their right mind would accuse a police officer of domestic violence. He stayed away from me for a while then.’

Aurora paused, lifted her head and really looked at Callan. She let her hands drop down beside her feet. She could see the questions in Cal’s eyes. He had unbelief written all over his face, unbelief that a man could do that to his wife. Callan reached out and grabbed hold of her hand. She dropped her eyes, overcome. Staring at the ground, she continued.

‘You’re probably wondering why I stayed or why I didn’t report him. Domestic violence is so widely publicised now that every woman should know that it isn’t right and doesn’t have to be tolerated. But who could I tell Cal?’

Her voice trembled slightly and a tear spilled down her cheek.

‘I couldn’t report him to the police, who was going to believe me? He was one of the up and coming stars of the force. Nobody was going to believe that he was belting the crap out of his wife at home. I couldn’t leave where would I go? I couldn’t go anywhere that he wouldn’t be able to find me. Even if by some miracle somebody on the police force believed me and helped me to change my name and get my life together, he would have still found me through Gran and I couldn’t do that to her.’

Aurora took a really deep breath.

‘It was so hard hiding everything that was happening from her. She knew something was wrong she could hear it in my voice. Especially when I found out I was pregnant. She kept asking questions and I couldn’t give her answers. I couldn’t tell anybody that I was pregnant. It hadn’t been planned; I guess it fell into the small percentage of times that the pill doesn’t work. I especially didn’t want Peter to know for as long as possible. It would have given him another weapon to use against me. After a couple of months he confronted me. I was in the lounge at the time. He had come barging through the front door, hitting it into the hall wall and not bothering to close it. My heart was racing by this time as you can imagine. He came around the corner into the lounge and started yelling at me, asking me did I have something to tell him. I was sitting in the lounge and remained silent. He was furious; the anger was coming off him in waves. He stood over me, and proceeded to tell me that he had noticed that I hadn’t seemed to have had a period for a while. He hauled me to my feet and asked me whether I had something to tell him. I was still silent. With that he slapped me across the face a couple of times and called me a whole stack of names, and started ranting that maybe the baby wasn’t his and that was why I hadn’t told him. He asked me when I had started being unfaithful. I quietly answered that I hadn’t been unfaithful, that the baby was his, but he didn’t want to understand what I was saying. He didn’t want to let go of the anger. He asked me when, and punched me in the abdomen. He asked when a whole stack more times, each time punching me in a different part of the body. He must have struck me ten or so times.’

Aurora buried her face between her knees before continuing.

‘The pain had dulled my senses and I could barely keep myself upright. Peter punched me in the face and as I crumpled he stomped on my leg and started kicking. I very briefly remember seeing one of his colleagues, Mitch, standing in the doorway as Peter kicked me hard in the jaw and I passed out.’

Aurora was silent for a few seconds before she finished the story.

‘I woke up two days later in intensive care with four broken ribs, a punctured lung on one side and apparently the other one had collapsed, my left leg in traction, no baby, a police guard and Gran sitting in the chair beside me. Mitch came in not long after I opened my eyes and told me what had happened after I passed out. According to him, he picked up this really, ugly, brass statue that someone gave us as a wedding present and clobbered Peter over the head with it to knock him out. He’d then called the ambulance and obviously the police. Apparently he had travelled in the ambulance with me and had asked the nurses to contact him the minute there was any change in my condition, which they had done. He had then very gently explained to me that the police guard would be there until the matter was settled. I couldn’t talk, I was too sore. Everything was sore, but especially my ribs, leg and jaw. Not to mention the emotional strain of having lost the baby a little boy. I just nodded. He spoke briefly with Gran and then he was gone. He visited virtually every day and after about another week he came in and told me that he had some really bad news for me, that there had been some sort of incident and Peter had died. I couldn’t be sad. I was only relieved. Probably sounds callous but after everything that he had put me through I was only happy to have an end to it all. At least his death had set me free. The coroner ruled it suicide, that he had taken his own life with his service revolver, but I’m not sure that it was. I asked Mitch and he wouldn’t answer, just said that it was over now, not to worry about it. I was still in hospital for the funeral and being in traction couldn’t go. Not that I wanted to. Gran sat at my bedside every single day until I was released. When I finally got out of the hospital, all Peter’s things had been sent to his parents and everything else was packed and in storage. I’m not sure how they got us out of our lease it was long term and still had 16 months to go but they did. Between Gran and Mitch, everything was taken care of. I was so grateful for what they did. They even got me an emergency leave of absence from the solicitors that I worked for, which eventually turned into a resignation. I went from the hospital to a plane and from there to Gran’s place at Vaucluse and that was that.’

Aurora could see Cal absorbing and processing what she had just told him. She couldn’t blame him for his silence it was a damned lot to get his head around. After eight years she still couldn’t really get over the enormity of the situation.

He laced his fingers through hers.

‘That man, Mitch, he probably saved your life.’

His voice was low and strained. Aurora gently squeezed his hand.

‘Yeah. I dare say he probably did. I still exchange Christmas cards with him and his wife. They now have two little boys, aged five and two. I remember asking him how he came to be inside our house on that day. He told me that he had stuck his head in to see if Peter wanted to get a couple of drinks with him and a couple of other officers, that he had knocked on the door and nobody had answered, but it was open and then he heard the shouting, which had by that stage gone way past a normal household disagreement and in typical police officer fashion came in to see what was going on. I will never forget the look on his face for the brief second that I saw him standing in the doorway horror and anger mingled with disbelief. I s’pose it is a bit of a shock when you see somebody who is a mate doing something like that. Probably an even bigger shock when it is someone who has sworn to uphold the law. Mitch is a good man. I’ve never pushed for more answers about Peter’s death. I don’t want to know. If he killed himself rather than face the consequences of his actions, well, so be it. If they took out one of their own in revenge, I should be appalled, but I just can’t be. Either way, I’m just really, really grateful that it’s over.’

With those last words, Aurora extracted her hand from his, got to her feet and went over to Sox. Now that the full story was out, she was uncomfortable and needed to move.

She leant her head against his broad forehead as she ran her hands over both of his cheeks.

‘You’re a good boy aren’t you? No trouble from you. How ‘bout we go get that saddle off you, hmmm?’

She untethered him and led him off towards the tack room. She may be behaving like a coward, or being unfair to Cal, but she didn’t want to discuss this anymore and didn’t want to have to deal with his reaction. She had just unveiled a major chink in her armour and wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Yes, it had formed part of who she was, but it was over and done with, just let it be. At least now he knew why she had reacted as she had.

Callan watched as Aurora fussed over Sox and led him away. There were any number of emotions running through him and he wasn’t sure what the correct response should have been. He hadn’t realised the exact extent of the wound when he had probed it and wasn’t sure whether he would rather have not known or if he were somehow honoured that she had shared it with him. He was glad of the space she had given him for now though, as he didn’t really know what to say. It was a bigger thing than most people would ever have to deal with and that was obviously why she was so strong and self contained.

He just hoped that the fire inside her didn’t consume the softness that was left, because there was still a tenderness there, he could see it in the way she related to his two nieces and the over the top fussing of the animals about the place. His main question, though, was how badly he would get singed if he got too close. He got to his feet, dusted the dirt of his backside and headed over towards the homestead. It was not a question that had an immediate answer.