Promise (33 page)

‘I know, but you can’t have one person, off the bat, deciding to take a child away, Anna. Think about it. Some random person who doesn’t even know the child decides the kid should be taken away from its parents. You think just because that random person thinks the child is at risk, that makes it okay? The courts won’t condone that, Anna. Anyway, is that what you want? Other people just taking kids because
they
think the child’s in trouble or in some kind of danger?’

‘Is that what you really think? I mean you – Dave? Or is this the crown prosecutor talking?’

‘You asked me if I thought you might get a custodial sentence. And I’m explaining why there is a reasonable chance that you will. I said this to you right from the beginning when you were in the car driving away with her. You’ve known it all along.’

She could hear how angry he was, angry that she’d caught him up in this. And that was fair enough. She thought of all the people she’d dragged into it: Pat, Sabine, Beatie and Will, her dad, Dave.

He went on, ‘I hope you don’t get a custodial sentence. But I’ll understand if it happens. And the prosecutor – whoever it is, and I’m being kept at arm’s length, as you can imagine – there’s a good chance he or she will be sympathetic, too, in this particular case. But there’s a bigger picture, Anna. Think of all the children who’ve been taken from their parents for their supposed good.’

‘You mean the Stolen Generation?’

‘Yeah. And the rest.’

‘This is really different! Her home wasn’t safe. Don’t lump her in with them.’

‘But she could have gone to Grandma in the first place, without all this upset, and without you facing jail. FACS would have got her to her grandma in the end.’

‘Is that where she is now?’

Her dad opened the screen door and handed her a mug of strong tea. He mimed that he was going to pick up the dog. She nodded.

‘Jesus, Anna. I cannot talk about this anymore. I’m a friggin’ witness. You’re not allowed to talk to your friends up north, are you?’

‘No.’

‘Well, the only reason you can talk to me is because we’re in a relationship. But we’re not meant to talk about the case. You should know – and I’m speaking generally here – that judges are not fans of vigilantism. And a judge is tied by the law and what’s happened in previous cases. He or she can’t let you off just because they’re sympathetic. Anyway. That’s enough. We can’t talk about it now.’ He paused. ‘What are you going to do now you’re at your dad’s? Get some work?’

‘I’ll call Monica and see if she has any bits for me. I’ll call around.’

‘Good idea. I saw her down the beach one day.’ He sighed. ‘Look, I’m sorry for hitting you with both barrels but you should be realistic about what you’ve done and what lies ahead. I’ll text you the number of a barrister who I think’s best for you. She’s not cheap, though. Do you have some funds?’

‘Yeah, I do. I’ll be right. I’m sorry for bringing this into your life and your workplace. I’m sure it’s . . . not easy.’

‘No.’ He said nothing for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was soft. ‘Have you thought about coming to Sydney for a visit? How about this weekend? But we can’t talk about your case, okay?’

‘I think I need to stay put this weekend. Thanks. Just to . . . rest.’

Inside, she lay on the spare bed and looked out the window. Dave was wrong to say that she advocated vigilantism, but she did think that people turned away when a fellow human needed help. She’d done it herself.

We just didn’t want to be reminded of others’ suffering
, Anna thought,
because others’ pain and vulnerability brought our own too close to the surface
.

T
he policeman at the front counter of the Orange station looked about nineteen.

‘I have to report here three times a week,’ she said. ‘This is my first day.’

It was her dad’s old station; she’d been in there hundreds of times as a kid, but didn’t recognise even one of the officers now.

‘Wait there for a moment, please.’ He pointed to a chair and consulted a ring binder on the shelf behind him.

She sat on the hard plastic seat and wondered again who had dobbed her in. She’d asked the detective in Byron but she’d shaken her head. ‘I can’t really say.’

‘But it was a private citizen?’ Anna had asked.

‘Yes. For what that’s worth.’

‘Did you send a guy with binoculars into the hills near my place? The day before?’

The detective gave a small smile. ‘Yes. There’s no reason I shouldn’t tell you that. We needed to make sure it was you.’ She seemed to be trying not to smile too much. ‘So you spotted him?’

‘I didn’t. One of the kids on the property did.’

The young cop at the Orange station called her over and pointed to a small device the size of her brand new iPhone.

‘Press your thumb to that, please,’ he said. The screen was a bit greasy.

‘Just wait and I’ll give you a receipt.’ He passed her a slip of flimsy paper.

Her dad was waiting at his café and had ordered her an oversized chocolate-chip muffin and a latte. As Anna sat down, a woman walked in with a girl about Charlie’s age. She had the very same high, curved forehead. Anna felt a surge of worry. Was Charlie okay?

‘How’d you go?’ her dad asked and passed her a serviette from the dispenser on the table.

‘It was straightforward. I just do a thumbprint and that’s that.’ She stirred her coffee. ‘Dad, can you tell me something that Mum and I used to do together? When I was little.’

He looked back at her for a moment, blank-faced. The chatter of the café washed around them. Anna was determined not to break the silence, but as he looked down at his cappuccino, she felt a pang. Was she unfairly forcing him to go to painful places? No, he only had to tell her once.

‘Well, I remember you and your mum spending hours at the kitchen table drawing fairies, and cutting them out and sticky-taping them in hiding spots around the house. Under the dining table, under your bed. In the freezer.’

Anna had the faintest shadowy memory of lying under her bed taping something to the wooden slats.

‘I found a couple in the linen cupboard when I was moving out of the house.’

‘Really? You found them ten years later?’

‘Yeah. They were really faded but that’s what they were.’

Tears sprang to Anna’s eyes. ‘Why didn’t you keep them for me?’

‘Would you really have wanted those little scraps of paper?’

‘Yes, I would.’

•

The puppy whined loudly in the night. Her dad didn’t stir, his hearing aids sitting on his bedside table. After half an hour, Anna got up and sat on the floor of the dark laundry beside Pup’s basket. She patted his silky head and soon he was asleep, snuffling quietly, his legs making tiny jerks. She opened the door to the backyard and looked out at the stars. It was quiet out there, with none of the reassuring cacophony of the rainforest.

In recent days she’d felt herself returning to a familiar feeling, something that predated Charlie. It was a feeling of drifting along and not even contemplating swimming against the stream. She was determined not to return to that.

At the kitchen counter, she opened her laptop and looked up
Seybold
in the White Pages. Of course, Gabby’s mother might not have the same name as Gabby. She could be a Smith or a Brown. There were four Seybolds listed for the whole of Australia. Anna guessed that the grandmother would live in a less affluent area, which ruled out the Sydney and Perth addresses. She looked up Google Maps for the South Australian address and street view showed a beautifully preserved Federation house. The Gold Coast address was a driveway into a block of small white-brick units.

I
t took Anna a fortnight to muster the energy to drive to Sydney to see Dave. She left Orange at 5.30 on Saturday morning and drove over the mountains and through the stop–start traffic to Bondi. Her dad had contacted Pat and arranged for someone to drive her car down. He said that Pat was perfectly friendly on the phone but sounded tired and the baby was crying in the background.

The only parking space Anna could find was five blocks from Dave’s house. The footpaths were thick with people heading out to cafés for breakfast or down to the beach for a morning swim. Everyone was hurrying, no one looking at each other, and she had to step into the gutter to avoid a kid gliding by on a skateboard. And then Dave was right in front of her. She’d forgotten how tall he was and how gently he kissed.

He ruffled her hair. ‘I like the new haircut.’

She smiled. ‘Oh, thanks. You should have seen it before I got it tidied up.’

Inside his apartment, he handed her a glass of cold grapefruit juice and said, ‘I’m making croissants with ham and cheese. Wait until you taste these croissants.’

‘Okay.’

They spoke on the phone every couple of nights. Sometimes he didn’t call her until midnight. She and Dave couldn’t talk about the case, so they ended up telling each other about their childhoods. She’d told him about her mother and he told her about his parents’ divorce.

Now she was sitting at his island bench, watching him move around the kitchen in his board shorts, and he didn’t seem like the same person she had those late-night conversations with.

While he ground the coffee beans, Anna looked out his back window and saw a cluster of her terracotta pots near the fence. She’d planned on taking a few pots back to Orange but decided to leave them here. He’d clearly been watering them, and they looked green and happy. She couldn’t bear the thought of them in her dad’s barren backyard.

They sat on his balcony to eat, the ocean glinting through a gap in the buildings.

‘Have you got an appointment with Lindy yet?’ asked Dave through a mouthful of croissant.

‘Yeah. I spoke to her instructing solicitor. I’m going to meet with her once the police send the brief of evidence.’ He’d gone through university with this hotshot barrister, who charged $7000 a day in court.

He put his feet up on the railing. ‘So, how are you going? You look a bit thin and . . . sad.’

‘Yeah. I feel pretty . . . bereft.’

She’d been saying the word to herself on the drive over the mountains. The word’s rolling middle and soft, falling-away sound managed to convey everything that she didn’t know how to say. ‘But I know that she may not feel bereft, you know, about me. It’s okay if it’s one-sided. It’s better, really, if she’s not missing me as well as missing her mother. I just want to know that she’s okay with the grandmother. That she’s being treated well. If I could just be a fly on the wall at the grandma’s house . . . I looked up where she lives. It’s an unusual surname.’ She fingered the handle of her coffee cup.

Dave put down his coffee cup. ‘Be very careful. Don’t do anything that might breach your bail. No contact means no contact.’ He was speaking softly and she could tell he was restraining himself.

‘I know. Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything to end me up in jail. Six hours in a cell was plenty.’ She sighed. ‘I just want to know she’s okay. I really miss her, you know.’

He gave a small smile. ‘You love her.’

‘Yeah.’ She nodded. Dave sat quietly as she cried.

•

They made love on the couch, and the feeling of him entering her was almost painful in its delicacy, and she couldn’t help feeling afraid that this was the last time they’d make love. Later, he fell asleep on her, and she lay there for a few minutes, then slid out from under him and went to the bathroom. She poured herself some grapefruit juice and stood watching him sleep.

At his dining table, she opened his laptop and looked again at the Google Maps picture of what she was sure was Charlie’s grandmother’s place.

A
nna and her dad ate grilled lamb chops and mashed potato in front of the television, the puppy curled up at her dad’s feet. He jabbed his fork at the TV screen. ‘Look at this idiot! He’s not getting my vote.’

‘No, not mine either. How much salt did you put in this mash, Dad?’

‘Yeah, sorry. It poured out a bit fast. If you add some more pepper that will disguise it.’

She laughed. ‘Where’d you get that idea?’

‘Oh, you know . . . long experience.’ He smiled and rubbed a slippered foot over the pup’s back.

The landline rang in the kitchen. Her dad sighed, and carried his plate with him to answer it. Anna used the remote to mute the TV.

‘Yes, certainly. Please hold.’

He handed the phone to Anna, frowning. He hated calls at dinner time.

‘Hello?’ said Anna.

‘You’re Anna Pierce?’ The woman had a gravelly voice.

‘Yes. That’s me.’

‘I’m Prue Seybold. Charlie’s nanna.’

Oh, god.

‘Hello.’ She stood and put her plate on the sideboard but the knife slid off onto the floor. ‘How you find my number?’ She picked up the knife. Would the court regard this as contact?

‘I rang another Pierce in Orange and they gave me your number.’

‘Oh.’ Anna walked out to the kitchen. ‘Is she living with you?’

‘Yeah. I thought you knew that.’

‘How is she?’

The woman exhaled wheezily. ‘Oh, I don’t know what to say. She’s not in a good way, is she?’ She paused. ‘She keeps asking to see you. You need to come.’

Anna closed her eyes and, for a moment, let the idea of seeing Charlie flicker through her.

‘I’m not allowed to see her. That’s one of my bail conditions.’

Anna glanced into the living room. Her dad still had the TV muted; he was listening.

‘Yeah, well bail conditions can go and get stuffed. I need you to come, love.’ She coughed. ‘Believe me, I’m not going to tell anyone that you’ve been here. Because this little girl needs to see you.’ She sighed. ‘She ran away yesterday, or tried to. I’m not . . . It’s a fuckin’ mess, is what it is. Thanks to her bloody mother and the boyfriend.’

Anna wanted to see Charlie more than anything, to check that she was okay, to see if this grandmother – who’d had her for three weeks now – was taking care of her, but,
shit
, she did not want to go to jail. How could she trust that this woman wouldn’t dob her in? She could be setting Anna up.