Alex Palmer - Blood Redemption

No, this is your gun to your head. What are you going to do about it?

Twist words. Play games. What was she going to do about it? Could she fire a gun a second time?

She sat on the edge of the escarpment near the sleep-out and took out her gun, aimed it at a tree and pretended to fire, making soft sounds to imitate the crack of shots. Ka-chung, ka-chung. As she sat there, she was caught unawares by a memory. In a clear vision in her mind, Dr Agnes Liu looked her in the face in the immediate second before she pulled the trigger that morning in the Chippendale alley. Lucy swallowed as she revisited the almost ordinary, surprised expression on Agnes Liu’s face when she looked up from seeing the gun and then directly into Lucy’s eyes. You didn’t know who I was, Lucy said to herself. You couldn’t see who I was because Graeme had said, don’t let them see you. So I didn’t.

I covered my face. I shouldn’t have. I should have let you see who I was.

Then you could have known why. Not to make it worse for you, but so that you at least knew why it was happening. And I should never have fired the second shot at that man. Never.

The word faded in her mind as she rested her gun in her lap. Every feeling she had ran out of her, leaving her empty, without will. I wish it wasn’t like this.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, out of this thought, ‘I am so sorry I did it.’

There’s nothing I can do now. I’ve just got to keep moving.

Stephen had gone to Hornsby first thing that morning, to shop, to pick up medications and to see the doctor who came daily to visit his father and who was due to call at the house early that afternoon, to talk over privately how things were. As Lucy climbed the hill, she saw Stevie’s car parked in the driveway. She found him in the kitchen unpacking white plastic bags. Several packets of cigarettes lay on top of the morning paper on the kitchen table.

‘I bought you some cigarettes. I thought you might need them,’ he said. He spoke quickly, without looking at her.

‘Yeah. Thanks.’ She was puzzled by the way he was speaking to her.

She picked up the cigarettes and saw the newspaper underneath. She put the packets down and stared at it.

‘Shit,’ she said softly.

DO YOU KNOW THIS GIRL? On the front page, she saw the picture -

of her back — taken in Belmore Park almost a year ago. She knew the picture well. Stephen knew it well, she had shown it to him herself. She looked up at him. His mouth was open a little, his round rimless glasses seemed to bring a refraction to the look of shock in his eyes.

They understood each other as clearly as they ever had in this room.

Their understanding remained unspoken. Just now, silence was the only kindness they had to offer each other.

‘You have to go,’ he began to say but she spoke over him.

‘I’m going to leave soon anyway, Stevie, as soon as I can and I won’t come back. But I’ve got to talk to Dad first. Whenever I can. I’ve got to talk to him. I’ve got to say something to him. I’ve got to finish it, I can’t go without finishing it.’

‘What do you think you want to say?’ He sat down, reached for his own cigarettes, lit one. She sat opposite, he pushed the cigarettes across the table towards her and she lit one as well. ‘Do you want to tell him — that this is all his fault? Is that what you want to say?’

He gestured to the paper as he spoke, an odd tight movement. Lucy smoked in silence. This was the closest Stephen would ever get to acknowledging what had happened.

‘No, Stevie, I’m not going to say that. Everything I do is what I do.

It’s not him, it’s me. I just want him to say that he shouldn’t have done what he did to me, that he’s sorry, anything like that … ’

‘Luce, I don’t know why you ever thought he was going to do that.’

‘It’s a craving you get. You want it really badly. Why wouldn’t I want it? Once you get it, it doesn’t want to go away. No, I know it’s no good now,’ she said. ‘He owes me. He owes me from here up to the sky for the rest of my life but, like Mel says, maybe it is too fucking late. Maybe I don’t care any more. I’ve got to see it finished before I go. That’s all I can do now. Fucking finish it. There’s nothing else. I’ve got to do that for me. Before I deal with anything else.’

They spoke to each other like two people who have agreed to finish their marriage, neither of them wishing to do so but both knowing they have no choice. Both trying to avoid saying what cannot be retracted, or doing anything that will make matters worse.

‘If you’re going to talk to him, just don’t make it harder for us.’

‘No, I won’t do that. I don’t want to hurt you and Mel. You tell him from me it’s okay. I’ve got nothing to forgive him for but I just want to talk to him. And I’m not going to hurt him or accuse him. Or anything.’

She laughed. ‘I’m not going to hurt him,’ she repeated. ‘What a joke.’

‘It doesn’t matter any more,’ Stephen said very softly.

‘It does matter. It’s just that there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve got a favour to ask you. Have you got a car I can borrow?’

‘Yeah. You can have the old Datsun, I’ve just had it fixed up. Take it when you go if you want. I can give you all the papers. I’ll get some petrol for you this afternoon. Is that okay? It’s all I can do, Luce. It should take you some way away from here. I don’t know how far.’

‘No, that’s good. Don’t worry.’

‘I’ll talk to Mel about Dad for you,’ he said.

They did not seem to know what else to say to each other. As they sat in silence, there was a knock on the back door.

‘That’s the quacktor,’ Stevie said, ‘he said he’d be early.’

‘Can I take the paper?’

‘Yeah, take it with you when you go,’ he said, not looking at her.

‘Yeah, I will,’ she said, ‘I’ll get rid of it for you.’

Stephen ushered the doctor, a man of about thirty-five, into the kitchen just as Lucy was gathering up her packets of cigarettes.

‘Good morning,’ he said, glancing at them. ‘They’re very bad for you, you know. You don’t want to end up like your father.’

Who gives a shit, Lucy thought, looking at him in disbelief. She did not bother to reply and walked out.

In her room, Lucy turned the newspaper pages, looking over the reproductions of her website, photographs of Greg, pictures of the scene of the shooting. She read paragraphs which described her in ways she did not recognise as herself. She was not cruel, she felt this deeply.

What were the magic words that would make the newspaper people and the radio announcers understand what she had really tried to do?

These thoughts occupied her until she came across a photograph in the paper, not of herself or Greg, but of someone she nonetheless recognised. A face that she knew well but from a different place. She sat looking at it for some moments before opening up her computer, logging on and going out onto the Net. After she found what she was looking for, she felt what was almost a sense of relief, a final letting go of everything. As Greg had said to her often enough, nothing matters.

Are you out there, Turtle?

I’m here Firewall I’ve been waiting 4 u Why is that?

I just am

Lucy did not type anything for a few moments.

Are u there?

I’m here, I’m always here for you. Or I was. Turtle, you said that you never lied to me. That you never have and you never will.

Never have never U believe me Its true I have never lied 2 u No? Are you sure about that?

No I never have

I saw a picture in the paper today. It’s the policeman who’s looking for me. And I thought, I know who that is. That’s your father, isn’t it?