Just Another Mountain by Sarah Jane Douglas

Author:Sarah Jane Douglas
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783964208
Publisher: Elliott & Thompson

It had been a rainy day, four weeks after Mum’s funeral, when I was manhandled back into Woolworths by security. I was led up some stairs, their tan colouring worn down to a smooth grey in the centre of each step. What a truly unimportant thing for my stumbling mind to have focused on. A grubby white door was pushed open and I was taken into a small office. Dressed in a navy-blue pullover and skirt, the manageress, a dumpy woman with a terrible mousey-blonde perm and huge framed glasses, sat behind a desk that was covered in piles of paper in messy stacks. There were files and boxes everywhere, more like how I imagined the office of a journalist or private detective might be – except here there were random toys and Christmas decorations lying about. She’d phoned the police and officers were on their way. My belly churned, my head felt light and my brain raced at a rate of knots as the consequences of my actions finally sunk in. What in the fuck were you thinking? You have money. You could have paid. You even realised the security guy was watching you. Why didn’t you just dump the stuff? You’re such an idiot. I then recoiled as horror filled me. What were my grandparents going to think?

The door opened and in walked a policeman. I looked up at his face, which was partially concealed under the shiny peak of his black cap, and cringed. I couldn’t believe it. I knew him. My embarrassment doubled as my mind flickered back to the night I’d shagged him down the putting green, long ago. I kept quiet but I knew he recognised me too. He opened up the large, white-plastic carrier bag that I’d stashed the stolen goods in and pulled the bizarre variety of items out one by one. He looked at me, and then at the manageress.

‘I think’, he said, ‘that in this case it would probably be better if you don’t press charges. I know Sarah’s circumstances and, if she is agreeable, I would instead refer her to the community psychiatric team for counselling.’

There was a pause before the manageress nodded.

‘I don’t want to see you in my store again,’ she warned sternly.

‘Okay,’ I answered, and then asked if my name would appear in the paper.

‘No. We can keep you out of that,’ the policeman answered.

‘Thank you,’ I said, grateful that my grandparents would be spared the knowledge and shame of what I’d done. And with that I was free to leave.

Yet I was not free.

I hadn’t been able talk to my grandparents about how I really felt inside. How could I? I knew that their hearts were as broken as mine. I’d lost my mum, but they’d buried their child. I could only imagine their suffering. And yet they sheltered me from their own pain with a united show of composure. I witnessed only one outpouring of grief, from my grandfather. It was my fault, I’d said something, I can’t even remember what, that finally broke through his stoic self-control.

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