Chapter 6
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Beth stared absentmindedly up at the ceiling, trying her hardest to ignore the constant ticking of the alarm clock on the bedside table. It had just gone past midnight and she was having trouble sleeping. Beth’s love for Alex was paramount – which probably didn’t help considering she was now sharing the bed with Murray who was snoring away gently beside her.
She wasn’t even sure how it all happened. Murray had approached her with a surprising admission – he had fallen for her and appeared to be losing interest in Alex. Beth had tried to discourage him but he was adamant. The rest was a blur and Beth soon found herself falling for him. It probably had something to do with loving him right from the beginning.
Now, she was staring up at the ceiling of Murray’s bedroom. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t shake it off. She had to admit that it had been done with deliberation and intent. Unfortunately, she hadn’t paid due thought to the consequences of her actions and now she had to deal with them. She glanced nervously at the slumbering figure beside her, wondering how he would react if he ever discovered the truth.
After what seemed like an eternity, she gradually let her mind wander, lulled by the perfect rhythm of both the alarm clock’s ticking and Murray’s snoring. Suddenly a new sound interrupted the musical atmosphere but it did nothing to accompany it. It was a distinctive creaking sound, causing Beth to frown and
look up. Standing in the open doorway was a very familiar figure who, under normal circumstances, stuck out like a sore thumb. Alex glared menacingly at her older sister, There was something odd about her and it had nothing to do with the hospital gown she was wearing.
‘Alex? You’re supposed to be in hospital,’ Beth quipped curiously, sitting up in bed.
‘Yeah, no thanks to you!’ Alex snorted, slowing making her way to Beth.
It was here Beth realised what was amiss. Alex no longer respected her sister as she had done for most of her life. If Beth wasn’t nervous before, she certainly was now. Oddly enough, Alex’s sudden discharge didn’t seem to faze Beth at all. She was more interested in Alex’s frame of mind.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked cautiously.
‘Do I look stupid? You’re the reason why I’m in the bloody hospital!’
Beth licked her lips nervously. Alex clearly wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe she could negotiate with her..
‘Alex, Look. Just calm down. We can talk about this.’
Alex just laughed without emotion and brandished a screwdriver. Beth didn’t even stop to think where she could possibly hide the work tool under her bare hospital gown. She quickly glanced at Murray who appeared not to have been disturbed by Alex’s sudden presence. His gentle snoring continue. Alex didn’t seem to care.
‘You know what? I’m sick of talking!’ she growled, advancing closer towards her older sister. ‘You’re going to pay for this!’
Alex’s eyes looked positively menacing and her face hard with determination. Beth was half afraid she would actually carry out her terrible deed.
Then, without warning, a car suddenly screeched and drove off in a distance, causing Beth to blink. Slowly, she looked around and found herself still lying in bed next to Murray who stirred slightly but didn’t waken. Beth looked up to find the door to the bedroom closed and Alex was nowhere to be found. Had she dreamt the whole thing?
She lay there for a few moments, staring back up at the ceiling and trying to organise her chaotic thoughts. No matter how hard she tried she still couldn’t shake the guilt that had engulfed her and she decided that she needed to get up and clear her head for a while.
Distracted, she entered Murray’s spotless and spacious kitchen and headed straight for the stainless steel refrigerator to retrieve a carton of milk which she proceeded to pour into a glass. Taking a sip from the glass, she tried her best to calm down. The vision of Alex tyring to kill her with a screwdriver was not one she was going to forget in a hurry. Unfortunately, her restlessness proved too much and she soon lost interest in the glass in her hand.
Placing it down on a nearby bench top, she stormed out into the balcony, desperate for some fresh air. Still very much on edge, she struggled to maintain her breathing, jumping every time police or ambulance sirens rang out in a distance. Her heart was pounding heavier than before and she tried her best to assure herself that it was just part of her imagination – even though she knew Alex was right. It had been entirely her fault for Alex’s demise and she was desperate to keep it to herself. It had been a stupid mistake which she never anticipated would result in this. If she was honest, she’d conclude it was her instinctive passion for her sister that actually prevented the situation from worsening.
She was so anxious by the imaginary events, she didn’t even hear Murray come out and nearly jumped out of her skin when he gently placed his hands on her shoulders.
‘Can’t sleep?’ he asked.
Beth took a deep breath.
‘I’ve had better days,’ she stammered slightly.
Murray turned her to face him and looked straight into
her teary eyes.
‘She’ll pull through,’ he assured her. ‘I know she will.’ Beth dared not say anything. She was wrecked with
guilt and knew that if she opened her mouth one more time, she was bound to say something that would incriminate herself and she couldn’t afford that – not in front of Murray. At the brink of tears, she just nodded numbly and Murray held her in comfort.
Alex’s world was looking up. The fact that she still had no idea how her previous experiences had resolved themselves was of little concern – even though it should be a priority in her mind. For some unknown reason, however, the past events had no baring on her current predicament which wasn’t entirely unpleasant on the outset. She had finally been re-united with her sister though she had no memory on how that had even been achieved.
She was glad for the camping trip that had been organised with Beth in the middle of the Australian bush. If she was honest, she didn’t think Beth was one for the great outdoors either but this particular excursion had proven her wrong. She had volunteered to collect more wood for the campfire, leaving Beth tend to the dying fire. Alex didn’t even think twice about the military style attire Beth was wearing. Beth looked up at her as she entered the clearing.
‘Ah, you found some!’ she greeted cheerful, poking the last ambers of the campfire back to life. ‘Put them down for a sec and help me with this.’
With that, she stood up and made her way to a rolled up tent kit that was lying beneath an eucalyptus tree.
‘Don’t you ever get tired of being so bossy?’ Alex replied heartily, dropping her load promptly on the ground and giving Beth a hand with the tent.
‘Course not!’ Beth teased. ‘Now, shut up and show me how to put this bloody thing together.’
Alex just shook her head with a smile. She was right. Beth didn’t know the first thing about camping. She picked up a steel pole.
‘Since when have you become interested in camping anyway?’ she asked curiously.
It was a fair enough question. Beth hated gardening. The thought of her camping was even less remote. Aside from that, everything else was making sense – so far. Not that Alex was paying much attention to any of it. Beth just shrugged.
‘I’ve always been interested. I ... just never got around to it until now,’ she began, then noticed Alex looking at her with scepticism. ‘And don’t look at me like that. I’m here, aren’t I?’
With that, she proceeded to crawl into the flattened tent.
‘Yeah, okay,’ Alex conceded, watching her sister disappear under the canvas. ‘I’ve just never seen you as a camping sort of girl.’
Beth appeared to be having trouble keeping the support pole upright in the tent. Alex frowned slightly. Something was a bit odd about the whole thing but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
‘Wait a sec,’ she began. ‘You’re my sister. I’m supposed to know what sort of person you are.’
Beth stopped what she was doing and just looked at her as if she’d just grown four heads.
‘Will you relax? I don’t know what you’re like half the time,’ she began as the tent suddenly collapsed on her.
Alex couldn’t help but giggle at the sight of her sister’s incompetence.
‘Apparently, that applies to tents as well. You okay in there?’ she asked, only to be met with silence.
It was at this point Alex should have realised that the whole situation had gone slightly awry. On hindsight, she knew that her sister would make some sort of cry for help or at least try to crawl back out from under the tent to assess the damage. However, for some odd reason, the tent looked decidedly flat and no movement could be detected. It was as if Beth had suddenly disappeared into thin air and Alex didn’t seem to register any of it.
Curiously, she moved towards the fallen canvas in an attempt to find her hidden sister and was met with a familiar tapping sound from within.
Tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap.
‘Beth?’
What the hell was Beth playing at? The sheer rhythm of the tapping should have stopped her from proceeding further but it didn’t. In fact, against all logic, it made her more curious than before. She continued to fumble blindly through the dark empty tent when her hand fell onto a cold metal rod-like object. She stopped and, slowly gasping the object, brought it into view. There, in front of her, wasn’t the steel pole Beth had previously been trying to put up but an army rifle. She dropped it in fright and took a cautious step backward.
Where had that come from and where did Beth disappear to? Was she really camping or was her mind playing tricks on her again?
She didn’t have time to ponder on the issue because she was suddenly overcome with a sense of great urgency. She wasn’t even sure what was causing it but she assumed it had something to do with the sudden burst of activity around her. She could heard the faint whisper of two-way radios in a distance and it sounded like a military operation was in progress. She blinked for a second. What were the military doing out here in the bush and why?
Without even thinking why she was doing so, she got up, turned on her heel and made a run for it.
Beth was a woman on a mission. Having been agitated considerably by the events of the previous night, she had spent the better part of the morning in the central business district of Adelaide looking for a suitable gift for her invalid sister. What she found was a beautiful white teddy bear dressed in a velvet blue bow tie. It was something of a peace-offering to Alex for what Beth was putting her through although logically, the latter was unlikely to have any reaction to the soft toy whatsoever. Still, Beth had managed to convince herself it was for her own peace of mind as well – especially considering the circumstances surrounding Alex’s invalidity.
Feeling somewhat more at ease, she made her way to the hospital’s intensive care unit. The place usually gave her the jitters but it was nothing compared to the internal demons Beth were currently battling. Little did she know, the apprehension was about to get much worse. As she approached the entrance to the unit, she happened to overhear a conversation between Claudia and one of the other nurses.
Ordinarily, she couldn’t care less what nursing staff talked about in their spare time. She usually ignored the conversations of fellow health workers because of the
ethical issue of confidentiality breaches. This conversation, however, was not one she could ignore easily .
‘I don’t know how she can do it,’ was the conversation Beth overheard as she neared the entrance. ‘If it were me, I’d have a nervous breakdown.’
‘If you loved your sister as much as Beth does, you probably wouldn’t think twice about it,’ Claudia assured her unseen colleague, causing Beth to stop at the doorway.
It was true. She did love Alex dearly but it was under other circumstances that brought her back to visit her younger sister.
‘Yeah, she’s in here just about everyday,’ the other nurse agreed whole-heartedly. ‘I reckon she deserves some sot of medal. Talk about dedication.’
It was here that Beth started to feel extremely uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation, subconsciously fiddling with the bow tie that was neatly tied around the teddy bears neck. She stopped in her tracks and leaned against the wall, struggling to maintain some degree of calm. Here she was appearing to be a heroine of sort towards her sister in the eyes of the nursing staff yet, in reality, it was her guilt and shame that was causing her constant visits. Of only they knew ...
‘You know that I admire about her the most?’ the nurse continued, completely unaware of Beth’s presence outside. ‘Is that she is still able to go to back to work after everything that’s happened.’
‘Well, she can’t exactly put her life on hold,’ Claudia reasoned, matter-of-factly. ‘Someone has to pay the bills.’
‘Maybe,’ the other conceded. ‘Although, being a first aid instructor, I though she’d at least take a few days off.
Imagine trying to teach CPR straight after trying to save your own sister.’
At the mention of work, Beth suddenly remembered the meeting she was supposed to have had with creditors that morning. She instinctively glanced at her watch and realised she’d missed it completely. The creditors would have given up waiting for her in disgust an hour ago. How could she have let that slip her mind?
‘Shit!’ she softly cursed herself. ‘Hank’s gonna kill me!’
It was nearly half an hour when Beth arrived at her workplace and she noticed a complete change of atmosphere. Normally, her colleagues would be at their desks minding their own business or chatting amicably to themselves next to the coffee machine. When she arrived, however, they were all gathered around a central desk and an awkward yet brief silence descended upon her. They all turned to scowl at her as she walked through the main door and Beth could only make one guess about what they were thinking.
‘Looks like the Queen finally decided to show up,’ one of them sneered unkindly.
His mood was completely forgivable given the consequence of Beth’s no-show at the meeting. The tension in the room could be cut with a knife.
‘Pity she couldn’t show the same courtesy to Essential,’ another snorted referring to the creditor company.
‘Hank wants to see you,’ the first barked as Beth made her way to Hank’s office.
If she didn’t feel ashamed before, she was certainly feeling it now. There was nothing worse than being proven completely unworthy and incompetent right in front of your trusted work colleagues.
‘Better you than us, I’d say,’ the second sniggered.
Beth tried to ignore them but it was proving very difficult especially when she was the subject of the taunts. She took a deep breath and gave the door to Hank’s office a firm knock.
‘Enter!’ came Hank’s muffled voice through the closed door and Beth made her nervous entrance.
Hank was on the phone when Beth stepped through the door. The office was well-furnished which included a nice big desk complete with the latest computer technology. To the left was a stylish mock leather sofa which seductively enticed visitors to rest their tired legs. However, Hank’s mood did little to invite anyone – let alone Beth – to sit on the sofa to relax.
‘Oh, come on, that’s a bit drastic, isn’t it?’ he was saying then paused to listen to the unheard response at the other end of the phone. ‘Oh, I see. Yeah, that’s fair enough.’
He looked up briefly to see Beth standing there.
‘Yeah, she’s right here. I’ll tell her. Bye.’
With that he slammed the receiver down. He looked
slightly worse for wear which was understandable considering the circumstances. He glared at Beth, furiously .
‘Where the hell were you this morning?’ he yelled. ‘W e’ve just gone into receivership! Y ou said you weren’t going to miss the meeting!’
Beth winced. It was as bad as she had expected but there was little she could actually do now. What was done was done.
‘Yeah I know,’ she muttered guiltily. ‘I’m really sorry. I had -’
Hank wasn’t interested.
‘Well, “sorry” doesn’t quite cut it,’ he responded
sarcastically. ‘Fifteen months of hard work down the tube! We hired you as a financial advisor – someone
who would be able to give us the best profit return and we end up with this!’
Beth was beginning to feel that this was a little unfair. It wasn’t entirely her fault - was it?
‘I did try to make the meeting,’ she began to explain. ‘ Honestly, I did but-’
‘You obviously didn’t try hard enough,’ Hank growled. ‘I’ve been on to the boss. He wants you out.’
The statement hit Beth like a tonne of bricks. Did he just say-? She battled to calm the fierce beast that raged within her. She had enough problems to deal with. She needed the money to keep up the rent.
‘What? That’s hardly fair!’ she protested but Hank cut her off.
‘Fair? We had a solid strategy in place, based on your advice to put to the creditors,’ he shot back unforgivingly. ‘And you blew it!’
Beth stared at Hank for a moment, her anger subsiding as soon as it had exploded. He did have a valid point and unfortunately she had nothing to counter the argument with. She could do nothing more than try and explain why she missed the meeting. Perhaps then Hank will be more sympathetic to her plight.
‘I ... I don’t really know what to say,’ she stammered. ‘I had an emergency I couldn’t get out of.’
Somehow the explanation of Alex being in hospital didn’t seem that easy to put forward. Not that it mattered anyway. Her destiny had already been cemented in concrete and there wasn’t anything she could do to change it.
Hank sighed. He was sympathetic but he didn’t have any control over the outcome. He was just the supervisor of the branch. Even he was answerable to the company’s manager. He knew Beth was angry at him
but he hoped she would at least see that he was just trying to do his job.
‘Well, my hands are tied,’ he apologised somewhat regretfully. ‘I’m sorry but they want your desk cleared out by this evening.’
Beth just stared at him in shock. She had things to do for Alex that day. She just didn’t have the time.
‘But I can’t I - ’ she began to explain but it was no use.
‘The matter is closed, Beth. Unless you want a court case on your hands, you had better be out of the building by 5,’ Hank appraised her sympathetically.
A court case was the last thing she needed. She had enough to worry about without legal proceedings throwing a spanner into the works. She hung her head in shame and, without a word, retreated out into the corridor.
