Lucy dumped the Datsun off the road near a station not far from Hornsby and stole another car from a commuter who would not find out until he had disembarked from his evening train. The best she could do for disguise was to pull the hood of her jacket over her head and hope that no one looked at her too closely. Circumstances favoured her: it was early, barely light, and the weather was bad, dark and cold. She drove carefully in a thin stream of traffic towards the towers of the city, on her way to the only place she knew where she could hide both her car and herself. There was no other choice.
The garage at Randwick was as anonymous as the first time she had driven in there after the shooting. There was a new padlock on the door but she cracked this open with a screwdriver she carried for this purpose. She drove inside, into a hermetically sealed sanctuary, an island of concrete within four brick walls hiding her from everyone’s sight.
She parked beside the pit, stood once again in the centre of the deserted building and considered that she was back where she had started. It was as dark in this place as it had been before. She took her pack out of the car and stowed it in the office, moving uneasily in the shadows, wondering if the ghosts she had encountered here earlier were still waiting for her. She walked out into the main part of the garage again.
What do I do now?
She did not have to go to the police to give herself up. She only had to call them and they would come for her. They would fill the street outside and, once they had her in custody, she would never have to decide to do anything again. She would be moved from place to place as the system needed her to be moved, she would only have to make sure that she was ready to go when they wanted her to and that she talked to whoever she was told to talk to. That she did what she was told to do and kept herself clean and fed. If she did not do this, they would force it on her. No, she wasn’t going to call them, not yet.
She had the whole day to fill, the conundrum of how to meet Graeme that evening to solve, the future of her life to decide. At present, her ghosts were quiet and she felt oddly that she had no power of emotion left. The memory of the people she had shot was not troubling her just now, those thoughts had faded since she had shot out her mother’s television set. She smiled as she thought of this.
She began to prowl the perimeter of the garage, kicking at bits of rubbish. Unseen until she stood over it, she came across a worn, dark red beanie tossed to the side out of the way. She picked it up and whirled it around on the end of her hand, staring at it. The almost abstract thought that her father had died that morning came into her head. She felt nothing for him and did not pretend to; it was more that something which had pressed down on a nerve was gone. As she stared at the beanie, another thought joined with this; the meaning of a difference in the look of the garage registered with her for the first time.
For some moments she felt too frightened to move, but told herself she could face anything, she already had. She walked to the pit on the other side of the car. It had been covered over with heavy wooden boards. She looked at the boards and decided she would not move them. She did not want to see someone she loved turned into the same thing that her father had become.
An interior stillness took hold of her, an emptiness unlike the gossamer lightness she had felt the last time she was here or the quietness which usually preceded the rustling sounds of her children’s voices. She had no blood. She was made of layers of rustling, dry parchment, an accumulated skin only. Her articulated thoughts had a curious density, like sounds not quite heard, muffled by a wall of thick, discoloured glass. With this odd and echoing interior voice she thought, quite calmly, that all that mattered was the next action, the next step. And then, after that, nothing would matter, because it would all be finished.
She walked around to the other side of the car and leaned against it. Unbidden and unwanted, the ghosts in her mind were returning in force, a jangling mess breaking furiously through a curtain of silence.
She screamed at them in her head to stop. They fell silent immediately, they had somehow melted into the air. An intensity of anger took their place. A hushed sound, burning as it made its way through her bloodstream, hummed in her head, obscuring her vision.
‘I don’t have to be frightened of anyone, do I? Not you, Graeme, not anyone. I’ve been there,’ she said aloud.
Anger flipped to coldness, white toxicity became planetary iciness, powerful in its capacity to plan. This detachment was an anaesthetic, it was useful. She could be possessed by grief or rage and still act. She had things to do. Important things to do.
Lucy started her car and moved it so that it straddled the pit. She needed to have a barrier between her and whatever might be in there.
She went into the office and taking her phone out of her pack rang Graeme. The battery would need to be recharged soon but there was nothing she could do about it. He answered at once.
‘New Life Ministries. Preacher Graeme Fredericksen speaking.’
‘It’s only me, Graeme. You don’t have to go on with that sort of shit,’ Lucy said.
‘I’m sorry, but I don’t quite understand you. I don’t think I know who you are. Is there someone in particular you wanted to talk to?’
‘Someone gave me your name. And your number. I thought you’d know me,’ Lucy said, assuming from this reply that Graeme was expecting someone else to be listening in on their conversation. ‘You see, I’m looking for someone. Someone who matters to me a lot. And they said you might be able to help. So don’t hang up.’
‘Tell me what you want,’ came the reply. ‘I’m always here to help those who need it.’
‘Yes or no is all I want. Will I find who I’m looking for …’ She paused, thinking. ‘You know, there are places where I was afraid to go.
Because I thought if I did I’d meet all my old ghosts back there and I’d be frightened of them. But I had to go back there because I had nowhere else to go, and I can tell you now, I’m not afraid of anything any more. Am I going to find who I’m looking for here? I look around this place and I can see that something’s changed, it’s all boarded up.
You know what’s different, don’t you? Now you had better be honest with me. You really had.’
‘Yes, I think you’re right. You probably need to know that. You probably also need to know that the person you seek is there because they chose to be. They sleep where they sleep now through their own actions. If they sleep in the cradle of death’s river, it’s because they chose to be there.’
‘Do you know the thing that hurts me most, Graeme? It’s when people let me down. I really hope that’s not going to happen any more.
I’ll be waiting to find out. I’ll be where I said I would be and I hope everyone else will be there too.’
‘Though you may have to wait longer than you expect, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.’
Lucy cut the connection. Time was no longer on her hands, she had things to do. Things to work on, things to build.
She cleaned her gun, reloaded it and left it sitting on the table, ready to use. In the cupboard she found switches and devices, explosive materials that Graeme had stored there. He had taught her about these things as well but she had not been quite so interested in them at the time. Now they could be useful. She fossicked around until she found in a drawer a stapled document titled, Ka-boom: Ways to stopabortion that work.
I’m going to give you a memorial, Greggie, the only type that anyone will ever take any fucking notice of where you’re concerned. I’m going to take something out for you in return for what they did to you. You’ll see.
She went to work, believing herself to be simply working and not sitting with every muscle tensed, concentrating ferociously on each connection built, obsessed by what she was doing. When she had finished, she was exhausted and terribly hungry. She tossed her sleeping bag on the pallet and lay down on it, holding her gun, aiming it at the ceiling, making pretend shots at the shadows. You be there tonight, Graeme. Then you can explain to me a few of the things you’ve done lately, can’t you? I’ll be waiting for you. Despite her hunger, after some little time she slept, as deeply as she would have done if she had been drugged.