outside and spent five minutes just deep breathing. Nothing more. She couldn’t believe what had happened.
She’d helped save Jerry’s life.
Her mother had ordered her to do it.
Elizabeth.
She had to find her. All she wanted was to find herself a bolt hole and try and come to terms with what had happened, but the thought of what her mother must be going through steadied her. A bit.
Reluctantly she cleaned herself up as best she could and went to find her.
But Elizabeth wasn’t at the refuge. Ally had to field a thousand questions before she could get away, but no one knew where Elizabeth had gone.
She wasn’t back at the massage rooms. By the time Ally got there, her stained clothes were starting to disgust her. She showered and changed. That made her feel normal-almost.
She kept on searching.
Where?
Where would she go herself?
Acting on instinct now, she walked down through the harbour. And there in her favourite spot in the whole world-on the bow of the oldest boat in the fleet-was Elizabeth.
Just sitting, hugging her knees as her daughter had done a thousand times before.
‘I thought I might find you here,’ Ally said, and her mother turned and smiled as if she’d been expecting her.
‘You’ve been a while. Is he still alive?’
‘He may well live.’ Ally stepped across onto the boat and sat down beside her. They hugged their individual legs and stared out to sea.
‘And Kevin?’ her mother asked, watching the sea.
‘He’s tranquillised to the eyeballs. The police helicopter will take him to Melbourne. He needs a far better psychiatrist than we can provide here.’
‘Poor Kevin,’ Elizabeth whispered. And then she added a rider. ‘He should have had a daughter.’
There was absolute silence at that. Ally could find nothing to say.
Finally she worked up courage, though. The question had to be asked.
‘Why did you ask me to save him?’
‘I thought I said. He has to go to trial.’
‘But to ask me to be a doctor again…’ She hesitated. ‘I thought you loathed my medicine.’
Elizabeth turned and gazed at her in astonishment. ‘Why would I loathe your medicine?’
‘You tried to suicide. When I passed my specialist exam you tried to kill yourself.’
‘That had nothing to do with your medicine.’
‘Didn’t it?’
There was another long pause. Elizabeth stared some more at the harbour mouth. There were swallows, swooping down in the failing light, doing aerobic feats among the mooring ropes as they searched for the twilight insects. The night was still and warm. Indian summer.
It couldn’t last, Ally thought, and she hugged her knees tighter. Soon it would be winter. Soon…soon what?
Still she waited. She didn’t push her mother. She’d learned a long time ago that Elizabeth kept her own counsel. She said what she wanted to say and nothing else.
‘It was the touch,’ Elizabeth whispered at last, and Ally tried to think about it.
‘The touch?’
‘Did you know,’ Elizabeth said softly, ‘that after my mother died no one touched me? She died when I was six years old. My father never hugged me. He never so much as held my hand. I was fifteen when I met your father. He told me I was beautiful. He hugged me. Of course I fell into his arms.’
‘Oh, Mum.’
‘Then at the commune there was nothing. No affection at all. Touch was sexual and there was nothing else. I lived in a vacuum for years.’
‘Mum-’
‘Then, when you had Jerry arrested, I fell apart,’ she whispered. ‘You were twelve years old and you stood up to him. You stood there that day looking like a little avenging angel, and I’d let you go. You were my daughter and I hadn’t fought for you. I’d given you to my father and I knew you’d never been hugged either. I just folded. I’d failed. Nothing seemed to matter. It was crazy, but for me the next few years didn’t exist. Even when you came to find me-when you took me to live with you-I wasn’t aware.’
‘You seemed dead,’ Ally said gently, and her mother nodded.
‘I think I was. But maybe we both were.’ At Ally’s look of confusion she tried to make herself clear. ‘The night you passed that exam and brought your boyfriend back, you were so pleased, but we all just sat there. We drank champagne and we ate wonderful, expensive food and the guy you were with-I can’t even remember his name- raised your gorgeous crystal champagne flute and said “Congratulations”, but he didn’t touch you. Not once. He hardly smiled. It was all so formal. I went to bed and I thought it didn’t matter whether you were sleeping with him or not-you weren’t touching him. And I thought, that’s what I’d done to you. It was my dreadful legacy to my daughter.’
Ally could bear it no longer. She reached out and hugged. Hard. And Elizabeth hugged back.
‘You see, this is the difference,’ Elizabeth whispered. ‘After the suicide attempt, I lay in hospital and you came in and you brushed my hair. You touched my face. I woke and you were rubbing my hands. Stroking. It was like a light had gone on. You were touching me. And I could touch back.’ Elizabeth was still whispering but there was wonder in her voice now. ‘I could hug you like I’m doing now. All at once I wasn’t dead any more. Do you see what that meant?’
‘I guess I do,’ Ally said, a trifle unsteadily.
‘You’ve changed, too,’ Elizabeth told her. ‘Jerry hurt us but he didn’t destroy us. He took a huge chunk out of our lives but we’re moving on.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You with your nice young man.’
That shook Ally out of her misty emotional haze. ‘He’s not my young man.’
‘The whole town says he’s nutty on you.’
‘The whole town?’
‘I’ve been talking to everyone,’ Elizabeth said, and there was wonder as well as pleasure in her voice. ‘All morning. You massaged and I talked. Welcome home, they all said. Welcome home. Doris Kerr came to find me after you finished massaging her this morning, and she took me down to the little house by the harbour.’ She glanced behind her to the cute little house with the sad window boxes. ‘I can’t wait,’ she said, and there was no disguising the eagerness in her voice. ‘I can’t wait to move in. The way I figure it, I’ll spend a lot of time with Jerry’s people, but that’s where I’ll live.’
‘Where we’ll both live,’ Ally told her, but it was her mother’s turn to look confused.
‘I’d imagine you’ll be living in Darcy’s house.’
Ally drew in her breath. ‘You mean Grandpa’s house. Our house. Mum, how could I possibly do that? It has such memories.’
And it seemed that she was right. But memories meant different things to different people. ‘My mother loved that house.’ Elizabeth smiled and linked her hand with her daughter’s. ‘I made the best toast in that house.’
‘Darcy still does.’
‘Well, there you go, then.’ Her mother smiled some more, her smile one of pure and absolute contentment. ‘And speak of the devil…’ She rose and waved and Ally turned to find Darcy standing on the jetty. He’d changed his clothes as well. He was wearing casual trousers and a big fisherman’s sweater. Jekyll and Hyde were at his heels, the spaniels gazing up at him with adoration. And why not? He looked big and strong and capable.
He looked wonderful. Totally adorable.
He looked like Darcy.
‘I’m guessing you two have things to sort out,’ her mother told her. ‘As do I.’
‘Like what?’ Ally was totally flummoxed.
