Truly Madly Guilty

She was really very drunk. She should move from this spot, but she didn't move.

Sleeping Beauty. Clementine did like her sleep. Sleeping bloody Beauty, that's exactly right. You're asleep right now. You're not even bothering to watch your children.

There was a sound. From somewhere. A sound trying to slide beneath the classical music pouring and tumbling from Vid's sound system.

Is Clementine performing? Of course she's not performing, Erika, you're in the neighbour's backyard, you're drunk, this is drunkenness, your brain has turned to water and your thoughts are slipping and sloshing all over the place.

She heard it again.

It was knocking. That was the sound. A rapid knock, knock, knocking. She saw her mother's face. Finger to her lips. Don't answer the door. Yes, Mum, I know what I need to do. Not make a sound. We never, ever answer the door. We don't want people to see our filthy secret. It's none of their business. How dare they knock on our door uninvited?! No courtesy. They have no right to make us feel like this. We stay very quiet and very still until they go away. Some people knock in a loud, angry, accusing way, as if they know they are being tricked and they're angry about it, but eventually they give up and go away.

Sure enough the knocking got louder and angrier. Her mother's eyes burned with hatred. They have no right. No right.

Erika shook herself. There was no one knocking on her front door. She was at a barbeque. Where were the little girls? She saw a flash of blue in the corner of the yard. Holly sat cross-legged on the grass with her bag, carefully taking out her rocks and laying them down in a row one by one. She liked to catalogue her collection at intervals.

There was a burst of laughter from the table.

Still that knocking sound. Where was it coming from?

Erika looked at the ridiculous fountain. She could see rubbish floating in the fountain. Someone's old coat spinning in a slow circle.

Her mother had piles and piles of coats. Big winter coats. As if they lived in Siberia, not Sydney. Well, she wasn't going to pull that coat out of the fountain. It was not her responsibility. She'd had enough of cleaning up.

Knock, knock, knock. How dare you knock on our door in that entitled way? It was coming from somewhere above her. She looked up and there was Harry, grumpy old Harry, standing at his upstairs window as though he were pressed against it, not knocking but banging on the glass, like he was trying to escape. He saw her looking. He pointed. He jabbed his finger violently in the direction of the fountain. His mouth gaped in a silent shout. She could tell from the stance of his body and his gestures that he was angry with her. He was yelling something at her. He wanted her to clean up that rubbish. The neighbours were always angry. They always wanted her to clean up the rubbish. She wouldn't. It was not her responsibility.

She stared at the fountain, at the old pink coat turning in slow circles.

She saw Whisk lying on the side of the fountain.

That wasn't an old coat. That wasn't rubbish.

The adrenaline was like a shot to her heart. All the things she'd stolen from Clementine, but she'd never meant to do this. Her fault, her fault, her fault.

The plates fell from her hands. She screamed Clementine's name.

chapter seventy-nine

The first aid course was held at the local high school which their girls would presumably one day attend, although the thought of a time when they were old enough to go to high school felt like science fiction. Their teacher was a large, cheerful, mildly condescending woman called Jan, who reminded Clementine of an insufferable flautist she used to see each year at music camp.

Jan began the day by going around the room and asking everyone to say their name and reason for being there and, 'as a fun little icebreaker exercise!', to answer the question: 'If you were a vegetable, what vegetable would you be?'

They started with a muscly young personal trainer called Dale, who was there because he needed first aid training for his 'PT licence', and who would be a baby kale if given the choice because it was a powerhouse vegetable - at this point he flexed an impressive bicep - and he had a baby-face. 'Excellent answer!' said Jan, looking momentarily overcome by Dale's bicep, which made Clementine feel fondly towards her.

Next was a squat middle-aged woman who was there because there had been a fatal accident at the office where she worked. A tradesman got electrocuted and the woman had never felt so useless or helpless in her life and she didn't want to ever feel that way again, even though she didn't believe it would have made a difference to the poor tradesman. 'If I was a vegetable I'd be a potato,' said the woman, 'obviously,' and she indicated her body, and everyone laughed loudly and then stopped abruptly in case they weren't meant to laugh.

Sam was next, and he spoke up confidently and clearly, sitting casually back in his chair, his legs stretched out in front of him. He said that he and his wife - he indicated Clementine - were doing the course because they had small children. Clementine looked at him. She would have told the truth. She would have said that their daughter had nearly drowned. She was always ready to share the story, but even when they were with Ruby at the hospital Sam had avoided telling people why they were there, as if it were a deeply shameful secret. 'I'd be an onion,' said Sam. 'Because I'm very complex. I have layers.' That got a good laugh too, and Clementine realised that Sam did this sort of thing all the time - training workshops, team-building days - this was his jokey,

blokey corporate persona. He probably always chose the onion.

When it was her turn she didn't bother saying why she was there as Sam had covered it. She said that she'd be a tomato, because it went so well with onion, and Sam smiled, but warily, as if she were a stranger trying to come on to him, and she was reminded of the humiliation of waking up that morning and talking to him when he wasn't there.

'Aww,' said everyone, except for the person behind Clementine who said, 'A tomato is a fruit.'

'It's a vegetable today,' said Jan crisply, and Clementine decided she was nothing like the flautist.

Once they'd gone around the class Jan said that if she were a vegetable she'd be an avocado because she took a while to soften up ('An avocado is a fruit,' sighed the fruit expert behind Clementine), and she was there today because 'first aid was her passion', which made Clementine feel teary. How wonderful it was that there were people in the world like Jan with a 'passion' for helping strangers.

Then they got down to business, and Clementine and Sam both diligently took notes as Jan took them through the 'basic life support' procedure, interspersed with stories from Jan's own first aid experience, like the time she'd run a course and found herself in the middle of a real-life scenario when one of the participants collapsed in class. 'Did you use it as a demonstration?' asked someone. 'No, I had to clear the room,' said Jan. 'People started dropping like flies. Down they went like dominoes: bang, bang, bang.' She said this with relish, to indicate the weakness of the general population. 'That's why you've got to give everyone a job - go and call the ambulance, get me some ice - or send them away, because otherwise people go into shock. It's a traumatic event. You can suffer from post-traumatic stress. We'll talk about that later.'