The Light on the Water by Olga Lorenzo

Author:Olga Lorenzo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2016-02-02T05:00:00+00:00

Linda calls that evening. ‘Had you ever been inside the remand centre before? Maybe when you were reporting?’

‘No,’ Anne says shortly.

‘Ah. I see. It must have been terrible. I can hardly imagine it.’ Linda pauses, clearly at a loss. ‘I’m so sorry about not being in court today. The paper was a mess. Everything that could go wrong, did.’ When Anne doesn’t say anything, Linda continues, ‘How are you coping, Anne?’

Anne can’t talk tonight. ‘I’m okay,’ she says.

‘It must have been harrowing. You have to be strong,’ Linda says, her voice rushed. ‘I do believe there will be a good outcome in the end.’

This is a standard pep talk, and as Linda goes on, what Anne hears is that things are dire. She wishes she could ask Linda to change the subject but such a request would require more self-assertion than she can manage. She’s always been quietly spoken (except with Robert; she let her hair down and raised her voice with Robert). But there are degrees of quiet. Her voice lately seems to be winding down, as if all the air is going out of her, as if she’s arriving at some final full stop.

Linda says something she doesn’t often say. Her friend, for all her gentleness and gentility, was raised harshly and doesn’t often wear her heart on her sleeve. But today she ends the conversation with, ‘I love you, Anne.’ Spoken slowly, pointedly.

Anne stifles a cry of surprise. ‘Thank you, Linda,’ she says. ‘I love you too.’

Things must really be bleak.

Tessa also rings—more than once—and Anne’s mother. Anne lets these calls go through to the answering machine. She messages Hannah, saying that she’s fine and back home but tired and going to bed, and hoping that Hannah is also good. It’s the best she can do.

It’s another sweltering night. She’s made a promise to herself, vowed to get through this time without resorting to drink or drugs. She’s sure that if she starts down the path of self-medicating, she’ll never return. And at times like this she’s her mother’s daughter—she can keep a harsh bargain with herself. She’s on her own tonight.

She tries to still her mind by focusing on her breath. As she exhales, the knowledge rises up that she fears the verdict of the press, especially tomorrow morning’s newspapers, even more than she did today’s bail judgment. Absurd, she knows, but a newspaper seems an even more public forum than a court hearing.

Towards dawn there is an hour or two of relief, until exactly seven. It’s as if she had set an interior alarm to the time the papers are delivered.

Waking is one thing that hasn’t changed in the months since Aida disappeared. For the first few distracted moments she doesn’t remember. She lies in bed, a blankness akin to contentment for the space of a breath.

Then the feeling emerges, preceding the thought. It swamps her afresh, with nearly the force of the initial loss.

She’s lost Aida.

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