‘Dad never talked about stress. I don’t think stress had been invented yet.’ Constable Peters laughed. He had an unexpected laugh, loud and jolly, the sort that might land a man a job as a Father Christmas in a crowded department store. When he stopped laughing, his voice softened. ‘At least, not in my neighbourhood. He’d be away for days, even whole weeks, and we were so excited because he was home, but he couldn’t keep his eyes open. By the time his energy came back, and he started chasing us around the backyard or playing cricket with us in the street, it was time for him to go away again.’
When they arrived at the police station, there was no one standing on either side of the counter. The row of plastic chairs under the waiting area sign was empty. The walls were plastered with posters promoting the Police Ethnic Unit, the Neighbourhood Program, Defensive Driving. Jo had been to this station twice before: once when Mandy’s wallet was stolen, and another time to have a statutory declaration form signed. On both occasions they stood at the counter, facing the mirrored glass and their own reflections. Now, sandwiched between the two cops, they went past the counter, through the door, down the hallway, and into the interview room.
‘Your lawyer’s running late. We can’t start the interview until she gets here,’ Constable Lumina said. ‘You can wait here.’
‘I have a lawyer?’ Jo asked.
‘Court appointed,’ Constable Lumina replied.
Both cops left the room. Mandy and Jo sat next to each other at the table. This was the first time they’d been alone since the accident. Neither of them spoke. Mandy’s anger, her disappointment, her sadness — these were the ocean of emotions that Jo didn’t want to disturb. She sat still and quiet, as if she were seawater prey and her mother the predator. As if being quiet and still would save her from her mother’s wrath. But Mandy sat next to Jo without touching, without speaking.
The interview room reminded Jo of a small classroom at school, D3. The room had the same furniture. The same blue-vinyl steel-framed chairs. The same dull laminated tables, small and square. D3 had been Literature with Mr Russell, a thirty-something poet.
‘I’m a poet,’ Mr Russell announced at the beginning of the year as he handed out a sheet with a list of titles and dates. ‘My published poems. You might want to read them… out of interest, of course, no obligation.’ The students giggled and sniggered. English Literature was a small group of thirteen.
Liam, one of the three boys in the class, called out, ‘Read us a poem, sir.’
‘You can read the poems for yourself. I’m giving them to you to rebut the myth “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach”.’
‘What? What do you mean?’ Liam asked.
‘Never mind. We’ve got mounds to get through.’ When he said it, Jo thought about the prisoners in The Great Escape — she’d watched the movie on a Sunday afternoon when she was supposed to be studying. In the movie, the prisoners dug a tunnel under the prison wall; they dug and thought about freedom, and they dug even though there was no end in sight.
Mr Russell materialised each week in skinny black jeans and one of a series of black t-shirts with images of various punk bands or their albums. He pushed the tables together, for discussion. Jo avoided joining the discussions. Occasionally he picked on her, caught her eye or called her by name, asked her what she thought about the poems they were reading. They were studying Auden: ‘This Lunar Beauty’, ‘To Ask the Hard Question is Simple’, and ‘Lullaby’. She was supposed to have memorised the poems for the exam, but now the only poem that came to mind was Blake’s ‘The Tyger’ — she and Ash memorising it together, challenging each other, one stanza a week. Tyger Tyger, burning bright / In the forests of the night / What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful symmetry? Their laughter and giggles after each stanza. But that was Year 11, a whole year ago now. Tyger Tyger, burning bright / In the forests of the night / What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful symmetry? She kept repeating it, wishing the rest of the poem would materialise, closing her eyes and concentrating. Tyger Tyger, burning bright / In the forests of the night / What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful symmetry? Tyger Tyger, burning bright / In the forests of the night / What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful symmetry? If only the rest of the poem would come back to her, if only she could recite it in its complete form.
When the door opened, Jo’s body tensed. A large woman came rushing into the room, banging the door shut. Jo jumped. The woman was at least six foot tall, and fat. The room shrunk as she dropped a bulging satchel to the floor, swung her heavy black cape off her shoulders, and rummaged through her bag until she found her phone and turned it off.
‘Sorry, apologies,’ she said. ‘The trains were a bloody mess this morning. Stolen copper. Can you believe that? Stolen copper? People steal copper from the railway line and that stops the trains. Unbelievable.’ And then, abruptly, as if taken by surprise by where she was, she stopped, apologised again, held out her hand to Jo and Mandy, and introduced herself. ‘Sarah Cascade. I’m your lawyer. From Victoria Legal Aid.’
To be Sarah’s size was Jo’s worst nightmare. A vague memory grew clearer: her father and stepmother showing her photographs of fat women. Her father saying, ‘This is how fat people can get, as big as a side of a house. People this fat die young. People like this are lonely and miserable. They don’t have any friends. They don’t have any life. Not one worth living.’ The people in the pictures were huge — ‘obese’, her stepmother called them. She’d screwed up her face when she said the word, as if their fatness were contagious.
If Jo had let herself get fat, would Ash still be alive?
Jo’s grandmother Mary often bargained with God and with the Virgin Mary — for her knee to improve or for Jo to do well in VCE, and promising that in return, she’d volunteer to clean the church or buy the flowers for Easter Sunday or make a donation to the church fund or stop eating chocolate. Could Jo make a bargain with God? She wasn’t Catholic. She wasn’t baptised. Did God care? Was he open to making bargains with all comers? Mary did say, ‘We are all God’s children.’
If she was willing to be fat, would God turn the clock back?
‘Now, I’ll get settled before we call them in,’ Sarah said, sitting down across the table from Jo. Sarah’s body was a series of soft rolls and folds; the top she wore was tight, and distorted red and yellow tulips stretched over the bulges and into the folds.
Jo closed her eyes.
‘Are you okay?’ Sarah asked.
Jo opened her eyes and nodded.
‘Sorry, stupid question,’ Sarah continued. ‘Look, sorry I’m late. We’ll talk more later. The police are going to ask you questions. They want you to make a statement. They want you to tell them what happened in detail. Step by step.’ Jo was mesmerised by Sarah’s bright red lips, her double chin, her pale neck.
‘I’ll be here. If I think they’re asking you a question that you shouldn’t answer, I’ll tell you. But otherwise I won’t interrupt. I’m here to make sure you are treated as you should be, within the law. Okay?’
‘Yes. But what if I don’t know… don’t have the answers?’
‘Let’s see how we go.’ Sarah turned to Mandy. ‘It’s best if you don’t interrupt, either.’
‘Are they going to ask me questions too? Will they interview me?’
‘Not now, not today. Maybe later.’
Sarah opened the door and called out, ‘We’re ready.’