Eight months earlier
PERTH
February 6th
Six days.
Once I’m through customs, I stand for a long time on the pavement outside Perth airport. The early-morning air is hot and sweet, and I squint against the sun. I’m waiting for the anxiety to start in my stomach and move like wildfire through my whole body but, apart from a strange fluttering in my throat and chest, it’s not as bad as I expected. I keep breathing deeply anyway, then turn my eyelids to the sunshine. I’m finally warm. This feels okay,good. I sit on a bench and tuck my smile into my shoulder. After all this time, I’ve done something by myself, not Mum’s decision, or Rhiannon’s, not even yours. Nobody knows where I am. Perhaps there’s more to me than anyone has ever assumed, even me.
I’m back.
The four-wheel drive hire car I choose is top of the range, better than I need, but I have Dad’s money now, so why not? I drive out of the airport onto the highway, heading straight for the prison, drawn like a moth to light. It’s crazy, but it also feels right. Is that how you felt when you took me, knowing it was crazy, but realising you had no other choice? An inevitability.
I haven’t driven a four-wheel drive since the time I tried toescape in yours, and that didn’t go too well, but I like being up high and how the car hogs the streets. Here, I can drive through the middle of the city centre; there is hardly any traffic. I can’t imagine doing that in London. They call Perth a big country town, as many people in the whole city as in a few London boroughs. I don’t feel as if I’m really here: someone else is driving this car, not me. I’m in Athens, transferring to an island ferry, hanging off the side of a boat, watching for dolphins. I wind down the window to the sound of the lorikeets, loud and rude, so different from the polite English birds. The heat on my arm against the window frame feels good; the pores in my skin are opening up. I want everything this heat can give me.
I’ve googled where you live many times, but there’s not a lot to go on. The prison website contains only a few images of buildings along with a short accompanying text. Apparently, you have a nailed-down bed, a small desk, a chair and a toilet. I drive into the sunlight, my fingers on the steering wheel tapping along to songs on the radio that I haven’t heard for years.
The first thing that surprises me is how soon I arrive: less than half an hour from the airport to the prison turnoff. The whole trip from my place to yours, door-to-door, takes only about a day. Easy. The second thing I notice is the long, tree-lined driveway up to the prison buildings. It’s as if I am driving into a nature reserve, not a secure unit. I take it slowly, looking for wildlife, wattlebirds, mynahs, Australian magpies. Seeing them is like greeting old friends. There are no foxes, but I know that in Perth, like the rest of the country, foxes are imported vermin; this state has the biggest fence in the world to keep them out. If my Sal were here, she’d likely be poisoned. Gums rush past on either side of my car: ghost gums, she-oaks, untuckedpaperbarks spilling their pages. You would like them. Did you notice all this when they drove you inside all those years ago? Can you hear the magpies and mynahs from where you are?
My shoulders stiffen as I get closer to the buildings. What if I’m not allowed to drive here, or someone recognises me? After all, I don’t have an appointment, no plan. But it’s so easy. Soon, I’m at the entrance to the prison, which appears at the end of the driveway like a stately home.
It shouldn’t be this easy.
I take a deep breath, and the tang from the eucalypts stays in my throat.
Along the high grey walls are watchtowers with windows, barbed wire and rotating cameras. There are palm trees too, tall and beautiful, and more gum trees, tuarts perhaps, with swirling pale bark. They look like old gentleman, bending together in the afternoon breeze to discuss the day. Their leafy crowns stretch over the prison wall. I imagine you on the other side of this concrete divide, looking up at the same trees, listening to the same birds.
We are so close now.
We breathe the same air.
According to the website, visiting hours are already over for the day, but I pull into the car park anyway. Today I just need to be nearby. Waiting. In front of me are two low buildings, between them a square of vivid green grass leading to a large door. I watch a woman around my age walk through the car park, pass right next to my car, and go straight in. Nobody stops her. Beneath the prison walls are beds of native plants, banksias and bottlebrush, and I can hear muted conversation from workmen trimming trees on the other side of thebuildings. Beside the soft greens and browns of the flower beds, the tarmac turns copper in the afternoon light. The smell of eucalypts, of growth, is everywhere. I breathe in deeply. I never imagined a prison would be peaceful. I could get used to a place like this. I should have come sooner.
Can you feel me here?
In the rear-view mirror, my eyes are bloodshot, dark circles beneath them. I don’t know what I’ll say if an official asks what I am doing here. I am so underprepared. But there is sunlight in this car park, and the same sunlight might be dancing across your skin, too. Can you hear that helicopter overhead and see the blue, cloudless sky?
It feels like I’m the stalker now, Ty. I hold the cards. I am the one waiting.
I think of Rose as I park in front of one of the most expensive hotels in Perth, imagining that this is what she would do.
One final trip.
Going all out.
There must be a kind of freedom in being ill, a narrowing of priorities, a focusing of the mind. I should email her; I feel bad about leaving her hanging. I could recommend she come to Perth and stay in this hotel, enjoy the beaches and restaurants. I could live my time here as if I’m living it for her.
At the front desk, an immaculate receptionist asks what sort of room I’d like.
‘High up,’ I say. ‘I want to see as much of the city as I can.’
Then, when she asks, I do something I haven’t done for years: I give my old name, my dead name.
‘Gemma Toombs,’ I say. ‘I’ll pay for ten days up front.’
She nods, nonplussed. I wait for any sign of recognition. Does she remember the name Gemma Toombs? But she just types it into her system and offers me a smile.
‘I’ll explain how to reach your room…’