Times of Trouble (3 page)

The cameraman was
close to the bed now, and seemed to be focusing in on her, enjoying
her anguished despair. Just when she thought it might be about to
end, the man on top of her seemed to get another wave of energy,
and attacked her with renewed force, throwing her body into a new
position, and twisting her legs towards him like she was a doll.
She felt clumsy and heavy as she tried to escape his grip. As he
changed position again, this time pushing her back against the top
of the bed with a sickening crunch, she finally saw Jared move
towards the bed. How could he watch her go through this? When he
lent in to speak to the cameraman, she heard his words: ‘Get on
with it, he’s almost done’.

Get on with
what?

She struggled even
harder, trying to force the heavy body off her. But she was wedged
between the man an
d the bed head. The
harder she struggled, the more force he used to thrust into her.
The pain got so bad she almost wished she could black out, to make
it go away. She tried to scream but his hand was over her mouth.
And just as she thought she couldn’t bear it any longer, both his
huge hands closed around her throat. She couldn’t get any air into
her lungs, and everything did indeed start to go black.

The cameraman moved the camera even closer to her,
zooming in on her face. She could see Jared still standing in the
corner, motionless. His face was devoid of concern, and even had a
glint of satisfaction that repulsed her. Tears streamed down her
cheeks and she tried to open her mouth enough to bite the man’s
wrist, but he was too strong; she couldn’t move her jaw. She didn’t
want them to have the satisfaction of looking into her eyes, so she
closed them, and clenched her mouth shut. Her head felt ready to
explode; the pressure was unbearable. And then it was over.

Chapter 3

Mum avoided me for
the rest of the day. She was sick of me asking about the mortgage,
and I think she was also worrying about how she was going fix
everything, since she was clearly out of ideas. I tried to go to
sleep early, but my mind wouldn’t let me rest. Part of me wanted to
storm into mum’s room, and demand an explanation. The other part
wanted to run to the computer, and cancel the auction. I did
finally fall asleep, but my dreams were full of dark
imaginings.

I slept in as usual,
having no real reason to get out of bed. Eventually curiosity
motivated me to drag myself to the computer. Mum was outside
gardening, the clip of her secateurs as she deadheaded the roses
audible through the study window. I sat staring at the auction for
a while. There were a few people watching Picasso, and one person
had already put in a bid. I felt better knowing we would have a
solution to the immediate problem - some cash. I was so engrossed
in watching my piano disappear, I didn’t hear mum walk into the
room, and peer over my shoulder.

‘
What are you
doing?’

She knew as soon as
she saw the screen what my plan was. She stared at me with a look
of such pained horror that I jumped out of my chair, and wrapped
her in a hug. Mum wasn’t expecting my suddenly intimate embrace,
and almost toppled sideways. As we righted ourselves, she started
to protest.

‘
Darling, you can’t
sell Picasso. It’s like selling part of the family. I just can’t
let you do it.’

‘
I can get at least
$5,000 for him. That would pay the mortgage for quite a while. When
you’re ready to tell me what the hell happened to the $80,000, we
can talk about what we need to do once this money runs
out.’

Finally mum looked
defeated; the mention of the exact amount of the debt rattled her.
She knew we needed the money.

‘
But your students.
You start a new term next week. What will they play when you teach
them?’

I hadn’t thought that
far so I just shrugged.

The tension in the
house was so thick, I sat outside on the back lawn to eat my
breakfast, hoping the cool breeze might help me to breathe easier.
Mum came outside, and stood for a while as if deciding whether to
speak or not. Eventually she sat down, making an effort to be
cheerful, even though the stress was seeping out of her like
sweat.

‘
Why don’t we go for
a walk at the park? Then I can explain what’s been going
on.’

‘
So you’ve decided to
tell me after all?’

‘
What with you
selling Picasso, I know it’s too late to keep this all from
you.’

I nodded in
agreement, and we both went inside silently to get changed. For me,
it meant throwing on a t-shirt and a pair of old cargo pants. Mum
always took much longer to get ready, so I passed the time by
playing a few of my favourite piano pieces, aware of having to make
the most of my time left with Picasso. I ended up with the last
movement of the Schubert B flat sonata I‘d won him with, which was
appropriate, since it was the last of Schubert's ‘Last
Sonatas’.

Mum looked just as
she always did after cleaning herself up from gardening, with her
freshly applied mask of makeup. Even when on school holidays and
facing a crisis, she still saw no reason to dress down. I'd
cheerfully wear track pants every day for the rest of my life, but
mum thought that was vulgar. She dressed carefully each day in a
dress suit, or short sleeved shirt, skirt and cardigan, stockings
and sensible heels. Her slim, short frame had been the same size
for my entire life, and some of the clothes she wore were nearly as
old as me. Her long fair hair was always carefully wrapped into a
bun, the flyaways plastered to the side of her head with hair
spray. I never understood where she found the motivation. Or why
she felt the need to look like a librarian.

We barely spoke on
the way. On our last long walk, mum told me she too was mourning
the loss of my career as a pianist. My first reaction was outrage.
How dare she tell me she was sad? How was that meant to make me
feel better? But as she kept talking, I realised she wasn’t sorry I
failed. She was just sorry I wasn’t going to be happy. She wanted
me to live my dreams as much as I did. I felt then that mum and I
were in this together, and maybe everything would be ok. The day
after, I finally worked up enough courage to place an ad in the
local paper for people wanting piano lessons. Eventually I had a
couple of enquiries, and two students soon became three, then five
and then eight. It wasn't exactly a full time job, or even part
time really, since the lessons were only half an hour each a week.
And it wasn't the job I wanted; it was just the only option I
seemed to have.

I hoped after
teaching my first lesson, I would feel some satisfaction at guiding
a new pupil around the piano. But I hated it. I absolutely hated
it. I had no patience with my students. I had no concept of how
difficult it was for a beginner to play the piano. And to top it
all off, I didn't even care if my students never got any better.
Listening to them clumsily prod and trip over the keys just gave me
a headache. I looked forward to the end of each lesson, so I could
go back to my bored stupor. All these students would have to be
called this afternoon. How embarrassing to cancel their lessons
because I didn't have a piano. But we had nothing else of real
value to sell, so I had done the only thing possible. Sold the
goose that laid the golden egg (if you could call $25 for a half
hour lesson a golden egg).

I stood by the car
waiting for mum to get out, but she seemed to be stalling
again.

'I can see how
difficult this is, mum, but how bad can it be?’

I’ve never been a
patient person and now I was getting to the point where I wanted to
shake her and see if the words just tumbled out. Eventually she
stepped out of the car and started walking so briskly, I had to
trot keep up.

‘
Ok Ellen. A few
months ago, I got a very strange email from an address I didn’t
recognise. At first I thought it was spam, and I almost deleted it.
But luckily I didn’t, because god knows what would have happened if
I had.’

Visions of Nigerian
email scams, and suckers sending thieves their bank account details
over the internet, flooded into my mind. Please don’t tell me mum
had fallen for something like that?

‘
Can't you tell it
any quicker ...’

‘
Yes, yes, I’m
getting there. So, the email was from an address I didn’t
recognise.’

She’d already said
that.

‘
What did the email
say?’

Much to my surprise,
she'd brought a prop. She pulled a sheet of paper out of her pocket
and handed it to me. She had printed the email.

The first thing I
noticed was the subject line: ‘Ob La Di Ob La Da’. And I
immediately knew, just as mum must have, who this email was from.
The message was short, but the implications of what it said caught
in my throat: ‘Except it doesn’t. I need somebody. Not just
anybody’. To anyone other than my mum and me, this message would
have been meaningless spam. But I could see what mum saw. It was
from my sister Sophie. And she was in trouble.

My mind was racing at
a hundred miles an hour. Mum could tell I had cottoned on. We both
stopped walking.

‘
Ob La Di Ob La Da,
Life goes on, Bra, La-la how the life goes on.’ I spoke the words
in a monotone; it wasn’t the moment for song.

Mum nodded. ‘And she
needs help.’

‘
Help, I need
somebody, help, not just anybody, or else her life won’t go on.’
More Beatles lyrics.

Mum nodded again,
this time more slowly.

The email had been
sent from a nonsense address, [email protected], on the 15th
October last year.

‘
What happened when
you wrote back? How could she have known your email address? You
haven't had one for long’.

Mum was now red in
the face, her forced calmness disintegrating.

‘
When you put my name
in a search engine on the internet, my email address comes up as
the contact on my book-club's website. That’s how she must have
found me. When I replied, the email bounced back. It said the
address didn’t exist. But it did exist because it was right there.
I must have tried it 20 times, and it just kept bouncing back. I
asked her where she was, what was wrong, how could I help? But the
message just kept coming up that there was a permanent error, from
some mailer daemon.’ Mum’s voice started to shake. She sounded
shrill and panicked as she recounted her frustration.

‘
The account must
have been deleted after she sent the email,’ I said. ‘But why
didn’t she tell you where she was? How were you meant to help her
if she didn’t give you any details?’

‘
I can only imagine
she meant to write more at a later time, but couldn’t. Or someone
else could see what she was writing, and she didn’t want them to
know where she was. There has to be some reason.’

Trust mum to give
Sophie the benefit of the doubt. So like a mother to look past her
child’s faults. My fear for Sophie was suddenly replaced by an
extraordinary irritation only a sibling can feel. What the hell was
she doing? We hadn't heard from her for seven years. And suddenly
this cryptic email showed up out of the blue, asking for help, but
not providing us the means to give it. It was completely useless.
Why contact us by email anyway? She knew where we lived. It was her
home too once. We still had the same phone number we always had for
god’s sake!

Mum seemed to be lost
in thought, but there was more to tell. About the money, for one
thing. She took a deep breath and went on talking.

‘
I decided right away
I couldn’t just ignore the email. But I felt so lost, I didn’t know
what to do. I couldn’t tell you about it because you would have
been so worried, and you were already very upset about, well you
know, things.’ She paused, while we both contemplated the
understatement of the century. I hadn’t left my cave (bedroom) for
a month around the time it was sent. No wonder I failed to notice
mum getting stressed about an email from Sophie.

‘
Anyway,’ she went
on,’ I did some research. I found a private investigator who was
willing to help me find her. You must understand Ellen, I couldn’t
just do nothing. You do understand don’t you?’

Of course I
understood, but I was still trying to come to terms with what it
must have been like for mum for the past few months. I didn’t know
what to say.

‘
The private
investigator, Liam Kingsley, has done a wonderful job. He really is
very good. Whatever trouble she is in, I know she is still alive
Ellen. He is sure of that. She doesn’t seem to stay in the same
place for very long. But she’s definitely still alive. I really
feel he is getting closer to finding her.’

Relief rushed through
my veins. I didn't want to admit there was a possibility Sophie was
dead. She wouldn't send an email like that unless something was
drastically wrong, and the email account disappearing was not a
good sign.

‘
Is she still in
London?’ I asked.

The last time we saw
Sophie, she was 20 years old and getting on a flight to Heathrow.
Mum didn’t want her to go, and I remembered them arguing about it.
Sophie never forgave mum for ‘letting dad leave’. I could see she
wasn’t to blame, and I recognised how hard she worked to look after
us after he left. But Sophie had to take her rage out on someone
and mum copped all her anger. She told us she was going to be a
famous actress, and dad would be sorry when he found out his
daughter was a star. Then he would return to us. That was her plan.
To lure him back.