Ash withdrew. Mani and Laura stopped singing.
‘What the fuck is going on?’
Don’t say anything. Get home. Just drop them off and go home.
You don’t fucking give a shit about me. You wrote about all those other people and nothing about me. You can’t wait until you don’t have to see me again. You’re a user. You’ve used me and now you don’t want to…
‘Slow down. Jo, please.’ Ash was pleading now. ‘What’s with you? Slow down and talk to me.’
This time Ash managed to switch the radio off. The silence in the car hit Jo like a slap. Jo switched it back on, but instead of music, it was a couple of radio jocks talking. Their voices were irritating, their laughter garish. Jo gripped the steering wheel tighter to stop the trembling. Her body was all pulse and beat, her mouth parched and bitter. The dark night was a stream of speeding lights: lights coming towards her, lights chasing her, lights on the bridge, white and yellow lights shooting back and forwards, lights turning the river into sheets of coloured glass.
They were under the bridge now, and its long concrete tail towered over them.
Focus on the road. Focus on the road.
When the steering wheel slid out of her hand, she tried to grip it again, but it was too late to stop the car slipping across the roadway. ‘Don’t put your foot on the brake’ — Jo remembered someone saying that, but not who had said it. The car spun as if they were on a ride at the show, at Luna Park, lights and screams and the car soaring and not stopping. Jo begging it to stop. Stop, please stop. And lifting her foot and smashing it down hard on the brake, and the car skidding, and skating and swerving, and finally her hands finding the steering wheel, the resistance of it, and screeching and groaning and more screaming. And the car airborne, and the barricade, a giant eagle, wings open, flying towards them. Arms up, eyes closed, the bellowing crash of metal against metal, thunderous and explosive.
Chapter 7
‘Wake up, wake up. Wake up… Can you open your eyes?’
A hissing and ringing, constant and low-pitched, muffled everything else.
‘Open your eyes?’ The woman’s voice was cracked and fragmented; a series of echoes. There was banging, and sirens and alarms and shouting. Jo wanted to cup her ears, but her arms wouldn’t move.
‘You’ve been in an accident… an accident. You blacked out. Open your eyes. Open your eyes… We need to get you out of here.’
Clamped tight, her eyes refused to open.
‘Let go of the steering wheel.’ The woman’s hands were cold as she gripped Jo’s hands one at a time and pulled them off the steering wheel and onto her lap.
‘Can you tell me your name?’ There was a pause. ‘I’m going to open the door now and take your seatbelt off.’ Her voice was harsh and impatient. It reminded Jo of Mr Marsh’s voice, of being told off for homework not done properly, of being the source of frustration, of irritation, of having done something wrong and sitting still and quiet and waiting to be punished. The woman yanked at the door until it gave way with a creak and a groan. There was a gush of cold air and the woman’s arm reached across Jo’s chest to unbuckle the seatbelt. With its release, her body slumped. There was a sharp ache across her belly. She winced and doubled over with the pain.
‘Your name’s Jo, is that right? My name is Teresa. I’m a paramedic. I’m here to help you. Jo, you have to open your eyes.’ She put the emphasis on ‘have to’.
Paramedic. Mrs Chang said, ‘You have a level head, you’d make a good paramedic.’ But Jo didn’t have a level head. She didn’t want to drive around the city to collect the dead and dying. The dead and dying… she remembered Ash and Mani and Laura.
‘I don’t want to see,’ she muttered. The buzzing in her ears was a roar now, as if she were on the tarmac at the airport, as if she’d fallen into an enormous jet engine. And beyond the buzzing, far off in the distance, there were many voices. People shouting. Someone sobbing.
‘Where are my friends?’
‘We need to get you out of the car.’ Teresa again. ‘Are you hurt? Can you move your arms?’ Teresa’s fingers on her pulse, her hands on Jo’s forehead.
‘Get up — come on, Jo.’ Hooking her arm around Jo’s shoulder, Teresa eased her out of the car. The pain across her abdomen intensified. Her hands throbbed; she struggled to open and close them.
‘Open your eyes.’
Jo finally opened her eyes. Laura and Mani were sitting on the ground. A male paramedic was putting a bandage on Laura’s hand. Huddled together wrapped under the same blue blanket, they were both crying. Mani’s head was resting on Laura’s shoulder. Friends forever. Jo turned back to look at the car. The front seat was empty.
‘Where is Ash?’ Jo asked. Teresa wore a yellow safety jacket over her blue uniform. Her lips were pursed tight and she avoided Jo’s eyes. She pointed to Laura and Mani. When Jo looked over at them, they turned away.
‘No.’ Jo shook her head. ‘Ash was in the front seat.’
‘Come on, keep walking.’
Walking hurt. She resisted. ‘Where are we going?’ She was blinded by bright lights in the darkness, and disorientated by voices, so many voices.
‘To the hospital.’
‘Is Ash there?’
‘Come on.’
Jo tried to pull away from Teresa and stumbled. A man came and took her other arm, and together he and Teresa steered her towards the ambulance. Around them there was so much movement. Flashing lights. Sirens. Horns. Cars and trucks zooming past.
‘What happened? I don’t know what happened.’
Teresa shook her head. ‘You had an accident.’
‘Where is Ash?’ Jo asked again.
‘We’re going to take you to the hospital. The police will call your parents. They’ll have to do a blood alcohol test. Do you understand?’
‘No,’ Jo repeated. ‘Please no.’
‘It’s the law,’ the paramedic said.
Jo pried herself free again. She needed to see Ash. Teresa let out a long sigh. She grabbed Jo’s arm, leading her into the back of the ambulance and onto the stretcher.
Once she was lying down, Jo shut her eyes again. As they began moving, she felt nauseous. When she was young she had suffered from motion sickness, especially if she was in the back seat. If Pop Jack was driving, he’d stop so she could walk around. Usually the nausea subsided quickly; she rarely vomited. Lying on the stretcher in the ambulance, she concentrated on not vomiting, on not thinking, on not thinking about Ash, but it didn’t work. Bitter and putrid bile spewed out of her mouth and into the bucket that Teresa held under her chin. By the time they arrived at the hospital, she was shaking and cold.
‘When can I see Ash?’
No one answered. She knew the worst was to come. She refused to let herself speculate, but already she knew she would be better off dead.
Chapter 8
Mandy had watched Jo and Ash walk to the car. They were grown women, and it wasn’t any longer her job to worry about them, but she hadn’t moved until the car disappeared around the corner and out of sight. She poured herself the remaining champagne and watched an old movie — You’ve Got Mail — and went to bed. She fell asleep and into a dream in which she was alone on the beach at sunset.
The white foam of the breaking waves was luminous, the horizon a flaming orange and pink. Strolling along the water’s edge, carrying her shoes in her hands, the lukewarm water lapping up against her legs, Mandy gazed at the long stretch of beach ahead. There was a light breeze, but she was warm and content.