Constable Peters resumed the interview with questions about the accident itself.
‘I can’t remember what happened,’ Jo said. ‘The car started to skid. I remember thinking, don’t put on the brake. The mechanic who serviced the car said that because the car didn’t have power steering, braking too fast would make it skid. But it was like, my foot, I couldn’t control my foot, and I slammed on the brake, but the car… I lost control of the car. I heard screaming. But I don’t know who was screaming. And then nothing. I don’t remember anything after that until someone, a woman, was standing next to me and telling me to open my eyes. I didn’t want to open my eyes. And someone speaking, someone saying, “She’s dead.” I didn’t know if they were talking about me, if I was dead…’ Jo stopped; it was as if she’d been running and hit a wall. And it was as if she were back in the car, with her eyes closed. And it was as if the paramedic were shouting in her ear to wake up. Sweat dripped from her temples, slipping down the sides of her face.
If only she hadn’t woken up, if only she hadn’t kept her eyes shut. If only she’d refused to leave the car. Was it possible to stop time? To go back. Could she trade her life for Ash’s life?
When the interview ended, they charged Jo with culpable driving. She was surprised that they let her go home.
‘You’re on bail,’ Sarah said as they were leaving the police station. ‘There are conditions. You can’t leave the state. If you move house, you have to notify the police. No driving — your licence is suspended. And no drinking, of course.’
Chapter 12
There were four messages on Jo’s phone from Ash. All of them sent after the accident.
You should be dead.
You’re a killer.
You killed Ashleigh. You killed her.
Murderer, scum of the earth, it should have been you who died.
Was Ash’s mother or her father sending those messages? Jo couldn’t imagine it. Maybe Jane? Feral Jane, Ash often teased her sister because she wore tight jeans with rips in the knees, and men’s checked shirts, and went everywhere on her skateboard, her hair flying. They fought a lot, the two sisters. Jane rummaged in Ash’s room when she wasn’t home. She pinched Ash’s make-up without asking. Jane and her friends skated up and down the driveway. Loud rumbling and thumping as the skateboards rolled over or crashed into the obstacles Jane and her friends set up to jump over, to slide off, to mount with their boards. ‘It’s torture,’ Ash complained. She screamed at them, and if they didn’t stop she chased them with the hose on full spray. The sisters fought and made up and Ash would promise to take Jane out — to the movies or shopping — and forget and make other plans and they’d fight again. Sometimes when they were younger, Jane would say to Jo, ‘I wish I was your sister.’ As loud as she could to annoy Ash.
Jo deleted the text messages.
There were other messages. From Laura: I hope you are okay. I can’t believe that Ash is gone. I wanted to come and see you but my parents said no. Stay strong Jo. xx
From Mani: I’m so sad and so angry.
Kevin wrote, Jo, are you okay? Call me. Let’s talk.
‘Kevin is too laidback,’ Ash had complained recently. When Jo asked what she meant, Ash said, ‘He’s a softy, doesn’t stand up for himself. He wants to do film or photography, be an artist, but his parents convinced him to do architecture. I told him, If you want to make films, make films.’
When the three of them went out together, Jo was jealous. All the kissing and touching between Ash and Kevin, and Ash forgetting she was there. It pissed Jo off. But now she wished desperately that Ash had invited him last night. If Kevin had come to the party, Ash would be alive.
From Bec, her partner for the History presentation: So sorry to hear about Ashleigh. Worried about you. Do you feel like a visit from a friend?
Jo began texting back, Ash was my friend. But she deleted the message and began again: I killed my friend. And then deleted that too. She switched the phone off and buried it under her socks and tights in the bottom drawer of her dresser. She shut down the computer and disconnected the power. She didn’t want to look, she didn’t want to read Ash’s Facebook page or hers; she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She didn’t want to read the accusations or the sympathies, the tributes to Ash.
There would be no more friends. She couldn’t be trusted with a friend.
‘We are in limbo,’ Mary said. She was sitting at the table, a cup of tea in hand. The pot of chicken soup she’d spent the morning making remained untouched on the stove. The aroma of it wafted through the house, but it hadn’t enticed Jo out of her room.
‘I don’t know anything about limbo. This feels like hell to me,’ Mandy said, as she leaned against the kitchen bench. Ever since the police had knocked on her door the morning of the accident, she’d been resisting the temptation to pack up everything, to leave the house and Jo and all of the sadness and not come back.
‘Stupid, stupid girls,’ Mary lamented into her cup of tea.
Mandy didn’t respond. She wished she was some other woman in some other life. A single woman, childless and disconnected, not related to anyone. A woman without a daughter. What kind of a mother made those kinds of wishes? What kind of mother was too weak to stop her drunk daughter from driving? Too weak to even try?
‘I can’t go anywhere now,’ Mary continued. ‘This morning at the supermarket, everyone was looking at me and whispering. Some people feed on this stuff, and now the gossips will be out, and they’ll be looking at us and blaming us.’
Mary’s wrinkled face, caked with foundation, showed no physical evidence of the impact of the accident or its aftermath. That morning, as well as making soup, she’d put on a full face of make-up, soft pink lipstick, eyeliner. She’d dressed for going out, in her green woollen jumper and brown jersey pants, and put on the green topaz earrings her grandfather had bought her when she turned twenty-one. Last year, Mary had found the earrings after years of thinking they were lost. When she wore them, she often touched them as she talked, rubbing the topaz as if it were a good-luck charm. Mary had been to church that morning, and to the supermarket. Most of her life was spent within a couple of blocks of the Yarraville shopping centre; she’d lived in the same house since she was married, more than forty years. Mary was right: everyone already knew about Jo’s accident. Mandy tried to control the sudden urge to grab her ex-mother-in-law by the shoulders, drag her out of the chair and into the street, and tell her not to come back again.
‘It’s best if we stay close to home and don’t go out too much,’ Mary said. ‘At least for a few days. Especially Jo. I rang David and told him about the accident. He said he’d phone and talk to Jo. You should send her away for a while. She could go and stay in Adelaide with her father. It’ll be hard for her now, around here.’
‘Well, let’s wait and see if he rings; nothing yet.’ Mandy couldn’t imagine David inviting Jo to hide out in Adelaide.
‘He probably thinks she isn’t up to talking yet,’ Mary said. ‘I’m sure he’ll call.’
‘We have to find a way through this, Jo and I,’ Mandy said. ‘I have to find a way to steer myself and Jo through this. It’s up to me. It’s always up to me.’