In the hour before dawn, Lucy was woken by the sound of footsteps and whispered voices in the hallway outside her room. She got out of bed, put on her old dressing gown and opened the door. The door to her father’s room was open and the room was lit by a soft light.
Melanie appeared, hurrying.
‘It’s Dad,’ she said, ‘I think he’s dying. I’m calling the ambulance.’
She had tears in her eyes as she turned to go down the stairs.
‘Can I go in there?’ Lucy called out to her.
‘If you want. But I don’t know if he can hear you. I think it’s too late.’
Gathering courage, Lucy walked towards their father’s room.
Inside, Stephen was sitting beside him, holding his hand. There was almost no sound in the room. Stephen looked up and saw her. He shook his head.
‘He’s dead,’ he said quietly, in disbelief. ‘He’s gone. It’s all over.’
Lucy could hear the sound of rain on the window. The window was open a little, the curtain moving in the cold wind. The pale fire she had seen in her father the day before had gone, his body was just what it was called: remains. His face had no connection to the face she had known as her father’s. It was less than a mask, something completely used up. As she stood there, she shivered. She felt a sense of claustrophobia, a stifling airlessness. She was convinced that he was still here in shadow, caught in this room. She pushed the window open wide and let the strong wind into the enclosed space. It burst in with unexpected force, knocking the bedside lamp to its side. The room seemed to flash from positive into negative and back again within an instant and she felt that now he had gone, it was empty.
Stephen, startled out of his thoughts, let go of their father’s hand.
He stared at his sister.
‘It’s all finished,’ she said to him. She was shocked at the depth and the painfulness of her relief. Her heart was racing, her breathing so deep she could have been intensely frightened by something.
Stevie stood up and shut the window, righted the lamp.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It was like he was still in here, I had to let him out.’
‘It’s okay, Luce. Don’t worry about it. Let me just sit quiet for a moment.’
He went back to their father. Lucy looked out of the window and saw in the distance a few scattered lights on the edge of the park. The reflection in the dark glass superimposed the image of her father’s body over the scene. She turned back to the room to see Stephen pulling the floral bedsheet over the body’s face. As he did so, her father was reduced to an outline.
‘We don’t have to wait in here,’ Stevie said. ‘Let’s go downstairs. We don’t have to look at him.’
He left the light on in the room behind them. Just before he closed the door, Lucy looked at the covered figure one last time.
‘I’ll see you down there, Stevie,’ she replied. ‘I’m going to get dressed. I’m leaving.’
‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
‘Oh, yeah. I’m sure.’
Yes, she was cut loose completely. There was nothing here to hold her.
Lucy went back into her room and dressed slowly. She had packed her backpack the night before. Her gun was concealed in an outside pocket, where she could reach it. She sat on her bed for a few moments before standing up and walking out into the hallway again, and then glancing one last time at the closed door to her father’s room.
On her way downstairs she heard the familiar sound of the television set in the lounge room and saw that the light was on. In the kitchen, she found Stephen and Melanie sitting at the table, drinking instant coffee. Melanie was crying softly. Stephen was smoking.
‘Does Mum know?’ Lucy asked.
‘You heard her, did you?’ Stephen blew smoke out. ‘Yeah, she knows. Mel got her out of bed. It doesn’t matter, Luce. Whatever she does now, it doesn’t matter. She can watch TV for the rest of her fucking life.’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I’m going now. You don’t need me. I’ll just be in the way.’
‘Why do you have to go?’ Melanie asked. ‘You don’t have to leave now.’
‘Oh, yes, I do,’ Lucy said.
‘I’ve got this for you. I meant to give it to you last night,’ Stephen said.
Melanie stared as he handed Lucy several hundred dollars and a set of car keys.
‘It’s out the front,’ he said, and she nodded.
‘Thanks.’
‘I don’t get it,’ Melanie said.
‘There’s nothing to get, Mel. Don’t worry about it,’ Lucy replied.
The three of them walked through to the front of the house, towards the noise of the television set. Lucy stopped at the lounge room door, wondering what she could say, if there was anything to say.
Her mother stood up and stared at her. She gaped at her daughter and then pointed at her. Her mouth was open like a fish blowing bubbles but no sound came out. Lucy guessed at once what had happened and walked into the room to see her face in identikit on the television screen, with a request from the announcer that anyone knowing the whereabouts of Lucy Hurst should ring Crime Stoppers immediately.
Looking at her mother, Lucy suddenly laughed out loud.
‘Let me leave you something to remember me by, Mum,’ she said, and putting down her backpack she drew her gun out of its pocket.
She aimed it directly at her mother.
Her mother screamed, Stephen shouted, ‘No, Lucy, don’t!’
Lucy turned the gun from her mother to the television set and shot it to pieces. The screen cracked, smashed and went dead; a stray bullet shattered the window behind.
There was utter silence and then the sound of crying. Her mother had fallen back onto the couch and was weeping. Melanie was bent over, holding her ears, crying and shaking where she stood. Stephen simply stared at his sister as she put the gun away and hoisted her backpack onto her shoulder.
‘Goodbye,’ she said and walked out the door into the pre-dawn light and drove away in Stevie’s old Datsun towards the city.
Thirty minutes later the police cars from the Hornsby patrol came screaming into the driveway, immediately behind an ambulance which had been proceeding to the same destination at a much slower pace.