It’s 9 pm, and I’m folding laundry at the coffee table while our garden swarms with cops. The crime scene team arrived an hour ago, along with the State Emergency Service, who set up tents and huge lights. Police Search and Rescue are also here, apparently. As it turns out, retrieving a body at night from the bottom of a cliff during a downpour when the tide is in isn’t easy business.
Kat left once the girls were tucked up in bed, promising that she’d be back in the morning, and Gabe is running around after the police, switching on outdoor lights and offering warm drinks and umbrellas. Which leaves me with laundry. Normally folding laundry is the antidote to anxiety for me, but tonight I find it lacking. I’ve already put away the toys and vacuumed. The dishwasher is on. I’m running out of ways to self-soothe.
‘Are you all right?’ I ask Gabe at intervals, as he hurries past on his way to do one thing or another. He nods. I suppose there’s nothing to say. It’s too soon for him to be all right. It will take time for him to process what happened. My job will be to provide the support he needs. A listening ear. Counselling. Perhaps even yoga? Recently Mum raved to me about a ‘laughing yoga’ group she attended down at the beach on a Wednesday morning. Bunch of mad ladies wetting their pants, she said. Maybe not that kind of yoga.
Perhaps we’ll take a meditation course together? We could practise that thing that everyone talks about . . . mindfulness! Or maybe we could try adult colouring books. If it doesn’t work out, we could give them to the girls. But I’ve always found colouring quite soothing – all those lovely colours staying neatly within the lines. I go online and order a couple, and a new set of Derwent pencils. It doesn’t completely relieve my anxiety, but it helps a bit.
*
It’s nearly midnight when the police confirm they have found the body, and the victim is indeed dead. The rest of the police work has been postponed to the morning, when it’s safe to continue, though a couple of ‘guards’ will remain overnight to ensure the integrity of the crime scene.
‘Gabe,’ I say, after waving off everyone but the guards, but before I can continue he holds up a hand.
‘Can I just . . . take a shower?’ he says. ‘Then we can talk.’
I nod, because after everything the poor man has been through, how can I deny him a shower? He trudges wearily towards the master bathroom, and I make my way around the house, locking doors and switching off lights. Outside, I hear the great crash of the ocean. Gabe always talks about how calming he finds that noise, but I’ve always found it ominous. Tonight, it is the most horrible sound in the world.
I check on the girls, who both lie horizontally across Freya’s bed, their tummies rising and falling in unison. Asha’s arm is outstretched across Freya’s face and their legs intertwine in such a way that I can’t tell which belong to who in the dark. It never ceases to delight me that each night we put them to sleep in separate beds, and each morning they wake up in one – a habit Mum tells me they inherited from Kat and me.
My phone pings, once and then again, and I know without looking that it’s Mum and Dad. Kat will have texted them the news. They are night owls both, and they’ll be worried.
I glance at the screen.
Mum: Kat told us what happened. Give Gabe a hug and kiss from me.
Dad: Send my love to the big man. We’ll be around in the morning.
My parents’ relationship with Gabe brings me great joy. When Gabe married me, they didn’t just become his in-laws, they became his parents, something Gabe was particularly grateful for, since he had no living parents of his own. Eighteen months ago, when our lives hit rock bottom, it was my parents who supported us through it, who helped us to restart our life at the beach – with me as the full-time breadwinner and Gabe as primary carer of the girls.
‘Everyone should have the chance to start over,’ Mum used to say back then, to no one in particular.
And that’s exactly what we did. I shouldn’t have been surprised when, in our usual co-dependent fashion, Mum and Dad, plus Kat and Kat’s wife Mei joined us in our sea change, finding houses within walking distance of our place. Our family has always taken togetherness seriously, but this was impressive, even for us. As Mum always says, ‘Family is thicker than water.’
Indeed it is. And that’s the reason, I suspect, why I was reluctant to offer the police any information that might reflect badly on Gabe, even though I know he didn’t do anything wrong. He’s been a different man – a better man – since we moved to the beach. Better than I had even allowed myself to hope. He’s like a man who has come off drugs, or found God, or both. Only a few days ago, I looked at him and thought, You’re fixed. I didn’t say it out loud, obviously. Believing people can be ‘fixed’ is a dangerous idea; it encourages young women to stay in relationships with men who ‘just get a little too angry sometimes’。 And yet, some people can be fixed. Gabe is living proof.
So I know there will be a reason why Gabe was holding his hands out in that way. He’ll explain it to me and I’ll feel that glorious sense of relief spread through me. Then we’ll fall asleep holding each other, and tomorrow we’ll get through this together. I’m looking forward to it! Which means I’m disappointed when I enter the bedroom and find Gabe, still fully clothed and still wearing his shoes, lying on top of the bedcovers, fast asleep.
4
AMANDA
AFTER
So, this is it. I’m dead.
The police are retrieving my body. An arduous process, apparently, and they are out of practice to boot.
I’ve heard it said that the most difficult death to process is that of a loved one who is taken from you without warning. I agree that that is difficult. But I can now confirm that it is equally traumatic to be the one taken without warning. The whiplash of it. One minute you’re here and the next you’re gone – yanked from one world to the next as if torn with forceps from the womb. Except, instead of being placed into the arms of a loving mother, I’m alone.
The moment of my death was distinct. There was no slowing down, no light at the end of the tunnel, no moment in which to choose. No decision to make at all. There was a crack, like glass breaking, painless and clean. By the time I realised what was happening, it was done. Nothing to fear in death, I realise. No pain or suffering, at least physically. And yet, I feel a feverish desperation to claw my way back. Because unlike the scores of people who have come to this spot before me, I did not come here to die.
5
PIPPA
NOW
It’s still raining when I wake. I enjoy three blessed seconds of calm before the horror of the previous evening collapses over me. The woman. The cliff. Gabe’s outstretched arms. My lie to the police. It’s a wonder I managed to fall asleep in the first place.
I reach for the lamp, switch it on. Gabe’s side of the bed is empty, his clothes from last night draped over the bedside chair. Gone for a surf, probably. This is a regular occurrence for Gabe, and probably exactly what he needs. Still, I worry that the distance he seems to be putting between us is the opposite of what he needs.
I pull on a robe and head out to the kitchen. The half-empty coffee cup on the counter and muted television （on the weather channel） provide evidence that Gabe was here. I check the back deck for his surfboard and wetsuit, and find them both missing, confirming my surfing theory. The weather is awful, but that has never stopped him before.