‘I wonder how Hanrahan got its name, Jill? Maybe the gift store in town has a book that will tell us. I know Lake Bogong spills into a creek system that ends up in the Snowy River. Sounds romantic, doesn’t it? A ribbon of water, winding through the mountains for thousands of years, snow gums shadowing its banks. Sadly diminished now, of course, since the dam went in. Progress, I suppose they called it back then. You’d call it an environmental tragedy, Jill. You’d have been painting signs and chaining yourself to snow gums.’
‘Snow gums,’ murmured Jill. ‘So lovely.’
‘Yes!’ This was progress! ‘I could bring you in some leaves from one of them next time I visit. We can rub them in our hands and smell them—that would be fun, wouldn’t it? Like we used to smell herbs back in your garden.’ Vera opened her bag and pulled out the heavy hairbrush. Now Jill was responding, perhaps she’d remember the old family brush she’d held so often in her hand.
‘Shall I brush your hair, Jill? Then you can look lovely too.’
Her aunt’s face grew confused. ‘Let me see that.’
She handed the brush to her aunt. ‘It was your mother’s, remember?’
‘No, Barb took it from me. She was always taking my things, wearing my clothes. She was a pest.’
Vera sighed. ‘It’s mine now, Jill. You gave it to me.’ A tear ran down Jill’s cheek. Sadness for the past, or sadness for not being able to remember the past? She gave her aunt’s hand a squeeze. ‘Don’t be sad, Jill,’ she said. ‘I can do the remembering for both of us. Come on, let me smooth these tangles for you.’
She began to draw the brush’s stiff bristles through her aunt’s wiry grey hair, and the motion was bittersweet. It was her aunt’s brushed hair—or, rather, lack of brushing—which had begun the descent into hell which had taken up the last year of her life.
She’d thought it such a simple question at the time. ‘Excuse me,’ she’d said to the duty nurse on the desk at Acacia View, ‘my aunt … her hair’s quite dirty, I noticed, and unbrushed. Has she been difficult about washing herself lately?’
‘All commentary and complaints about patient management are to be in writing,’ the woman had said.
She could recall her surprise. ‘I just wondered if there was anything I could do—’
The duty officer had tapped a laminated sign sticky-taped to the counter.Zero tolerance,the sign had read.Aggressive and abusive behaviour will not be tolerated.
Vera kept sweeping the De Rossi brush through her aunt’s hair, up–down, up–down. If only her bitter memories could be swept away and detangled as easily.
If only she’d not involved the other residents’ family members, asking them iftheyhad concerns. If only she hadn’t joined that social media group for relatives of Acacia View residents.
If only—
Crap. There was no use wishingif only. She’d done what she’d done, and now she had to live with it … or pay for it. A courtroom of strangers would decide which.
As though fate had heard her thoughts and decided to mess with her just a little bit more, her phone buzzed in her bag.
Hell. The one person she never wanted to hear from who she still had in her phone’s contact list.
‘Well well,’ said a voice that was three parts gravel and one part schmooze. ‘What do you know, telephones work up there in snowy woop woop.’
‘Hi, Sue. I’ve moved to the foothills of the Australian Alps, not Antarctica.’
‘Is there a shoe shop within a five-minute drive?’
‘Er … no.’
‘Antarctica it is. I got a little something in my in-tray today. You checked your mail?’
Vera held her breath. ‘Don’t tell me they’ve dropped the charges?’
‘I applaud your optimism, Vera, but this is not my good news voice. This is my serious voice, the one I use when my trusty timesheet is billing you for every minute of our time.’
Crap. ‘Just tell me quick, then. How bad is it, this thing you’ve received?’
‘Court appearance notice.’
‘When?’
‘Six weeks.’