Truly Madly Guilty

If Harry had been a different sort of old man they would have had him over all the time and they would have noticed his absence so much sooner.

Soon enough to have saved his life? Today, the police had told Oliver and Tiffany that it seemed most likely that Harry had either fallen down the stairs, or had a stroke or heart attack and perhaps had fallen as a result. There would be a coroner's inquest. It seemed like a formality. The police were going through a process; ticking off the boxes.

'He probably died instantly,' the policeman told Tiffany, but how would he know? He had no medical expertise. He was just saying it to make her feel better.

Anyway, let's be practical, even if they had been Harry's friends, they wouldn't have been over there every five minutes. He'd probably still be dead; he just wouldn't be quite as dead as he was today. He'd got deader and deader over the weeks it took before they noticed. She gagged at the sickly sweet sensory memory. A smell had never made her vomit before. Well, she'd never smelled death before.

Oliver was an accountant. He probably hadn't smelled death either, but while she'd been sick in Harry's sandstone pot (Harry would have been furious), white-faced Oliver had calmly made the necessary phone calls, rubbed her back and offered her a clean, precisely folded white tissue from his pocket. 'Unused,' he promised. Oliver was the man to have around in a crisis. A man with a tissue and a conscience. The guy was a freaking hero.

'Oliver is a freaking hero,' she said out loud, even though she knew Vid probably didn't need to hear any more about Oliver's freaking heroism.

'He is a good man,' said Vid patiently. He yawned. 'We should have them over.' He said it automatically and now he must surely be lying there thinking of the last time they'd had them over.

'Hey, I know! Let's have them over for a barbeque!' said Tiffany. 'Great idea! Wait, haven't they got some really nice friends? Isn't one of them a cellist?'

'That's not funny,' said Vid, and he sounded profoundly sad. 'That's not even a little bit funny.'

'Sorry,' said Tiffany. 'Sick joke.'

'For coffee?' said Vid sadly. 'We can have Erika and Oliver over for coffee, can't we?'

'Go to sleep,' said Tiffany.

'Yes, boss,' said Vid, and within seconds she heard his breathing slow. He could go to sleep in an instant, even on those nights when she knew he was upset or angry or worried about something. Nothing ever affected that man's sleep or his appetite.

'Wake up,' she whispered, but if she woke him he would keep talking and he'd been up since five that morning with the aquatic centre project. One of his boys had got sick and he was worried he'd underquoted. The man needed his sleep.

She turned on her side and tried to calmly sort her way through all the things that were churning through her mind.

Number one. Finding Harry's body today. Not a nice experience, but get over it. Harry was probably happy to be dead. He seemed like a man who was done with living. So move right along.

Number two. Dakota. Everyone - Vid, Dakota's teacher, Tiffany's sisters - all said that Dakota was fine. It was all in Tiffany's head. Maybe it was. She would continue to monitor.

Number three. The Information Morning at Dakota's new school tomorrow. Feelings of resentment (don't you send me emails reminding me that ATTENDANCE IS COMPULSORY, how dare you talk to me in capital letters) probably related to subconscious feelings of inferiority over the snooty school and other parents. Get over yourself. It's not about you. It's about Dakota.

Number four, but perhaps overriding everything else, were her feelings of guilt and horror over what had happened at the barbeque. Like the memory of a nightmare you can't quite get out of your head. Well, yes, Tiffany, we get it, all very distressing, over and over it we go, not achieving anything, just stop thinking about it, you can't change what you did or didn't do, what you should and shouldn't have done.

The problem was that every item on her list was so nebulous. Impossible to pin down. She remembered the days when her worries were always related to money and solutions could be calculated.

To comfort and distract herself, she worked her way through a conservative estimate of her current net present value: Property. Shares. Self-managed superannuation fund. Family trust. Term deposits. Cheque account. Doing this always calmed her. It was like imagining the protective walls of an impenetrable fortress. She was safe. No matter what happened. If her marriage fell apart (her marriage wouldn't fall apart), if the stock market or property market crashed, if Vid died or she died or if one of them got a rare disease requiring endless medical bills, the family was safe. She'd constructed this fortress herself, with Vid's help, of course, but it was mainly her fortress, and she was proud of it.

Go to sleep then, safe in the financial fortress you built on a transgression and yet still it stands.

She closed her eyes and opened them again instantly. She was tired but wide awake. She felt all pop-eyed like she was on coke. So this was insomnia. She'd always thought she wasn't the type for it.

She felt a sudden need to go and check on Dakota. She wasn't the type for that either. She hadn't been one of those mothers who go in to check her sleeping baby is still breathing. (She'd caught Vid doing it a few times. He'd been a little shamefaced. Mr I'm-So-Cool-and-Casual and This-Is-My-Fourth-Kid.)

She got out of bed, her arms outstretched, and expertly shuffled her way to the doorjamb, which always turned up sooner than she expected. It was much easier to see once she got out on the landing because they always left a light on, turned down low, in case Dakota got up in the night. She pushed Dakota's bedroom door open and stood there for a moment letting her eyes adjust.

Tiffany couldn't hear anything over the rain. She wanted to hear the even sound of Dakota breathing. She tiptoed forward, past the crammed bookshelf, and stood next to the bed looking down at Dakota, trying to make out the form of her body. Dakota appeared to be lying flat on her back just like her father, although usually she slept curled up on her side.

At the same moment she registered the twin shimmers of Dakota's eyes staring up at her, she heard Dakota say in a perfectly clear, wide-awake voice, 'What's the matter, Mum?'

Tiffany jumped and yelped. 'I thought you were asleep,' she said, pressing her hand to her chest. 'You gave me the fright of my life.'

'I'm not asleep,' said Dakota.

'Can't you sleep? Why are you lying there awake like that? What's the matter?'