Peeling the Onion Read online

  Praise for Peeling the Onion

  'Orr mixes the spicy ingredients of authentic characters and relationships with a compelling plot to produce a novel full of power and honesty, touched with humour.' Australian Bookseller and Publisher

  'Healing, honest, provocative...a story of personal growth.' Reading Time

  'The author displays yet again her precise observation of family relationships and her flair for creating original and richly individual characters of all ages.' Magpies

  'Superbly crafted.' Booklist (USA)

  PEELING

  THE ONION

  Wendy Orr

  This edition published in 2006

  First published in 1996, reprinted 15 times

  Copyright © text, Wendy Orr 1996

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproducedor transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available

  from the National Library of Australia

  www.librariesaustralia.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 74114 933 3

  Cover design by Sandra Nobes

  Typeset by Docupro, Sydney

  This book was printed in January 2010 at

  McPherson’s Printing Group

  76 Nelson Street, Maryborough, Victoria 3465, Australia

  www.mcphersonsprinting.com.au

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

  For my family

  and all my friends -

  the ones who stuck by me

  and the ones I met along the way

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 1

  I've won. I'm tingling with energy and excitement; bowing to the judges, accepting—it's the first tournament on the way to the Nationals, and I've just fought last year's champion . . . and the golden figure on its black marble stand is mine.

  A two-fingered whistle splits the silence; Hayden is waving his fists in the air and shouting my name. I step back into the crowd and his arms go around me . . . the kiss is long and fantastic and I don't think we can say we're just friends any more.

  'Save it for the bedroom, you two!' Sensai growls, but I'm too happy to be embarrassed.

  A star of shattered glass, cold against my temple.

  Blackness.

  Sinking in the woolly blackness, choking, drowning, suffocating.

  I want to claw my way out but can't move, want to scream but don't know how. The blackness is swallowing me and 1 know that if I can't fight it the me will be gone and the blackness will go on without end.

  Strapped on a bed; hard, jolting; pain jabbing, throbbing, screaming.

  A woman looming over me . . . smiling . . . blue uniform—an ambulance?

  'How's the pain?'

  Past pain into a new dimension of horror; neck shredded, strangled; spasms from hell.

  Something over my face; I can't talk. Have to tell her, make her understand, make her fix it! Squeeze my fist in the air, tightly and rhythmically; desperately. J can't take much more, my fist screams.

  The woman smiles. 'Not too bad?'

  A nightmare. It has to be a nightmare.

  But even in a nightmare I'd never make an ambulance so uncomfortable. This must be real.

  The ambulance stops. A mask is pulled off my face. My bed bumps out into fresh air; rolls through swinging plastic doors and past my parents. They're huddled together, cold and shrunken.

  I fade out again; open my eyes to a busy, clattering room with white ceilings; an invisible child crying. Faces hover; white coats and nurses. Deft strokes and sharp knives skin me from T-shirt and jeans—new jeans; I'd have worn old ones if I'd known. My tulip T-shirt, Aunt Lieke sent it from Holland. Did I say that out loud?

  'We'll save the motif if you want—you could soak out the blood and stitch it onto something else.'

  Must have. 'It doesn't matter.'

  I remember now—Lieke's dead. Maybe it wasn't a lucky T-shirt.

  A sheet draped over me; a doctor dabbing something on my cheek. 'You were lucky—a little higher and you could have lost an eye.'

  Three stitches. They'll dissolve in a few days.

  'Now—how do you feel about cleft chins?'

  ????? Don't let him see the panic. 'Just what I always wanted.'

  'That's the spirit . . . this will taste funny'—bitter liquid straight into my mouth from a hole in my chin. Hole through my chin! Sounds yuck. Don't care.

  Mum and Dad again. Dad sniffs; blows his nose. Crying? A huge terrible knowledge lurks under the pain, under this babble of words flowing through my brain or out of my mouth.

  'Is this real?' I ask. Nobody answers. The young doctor wants to know who and where I am, what day it is. The same questions they ask when you're hit in the head at karate—can't trick me, I'll answer their questions, I'll be polite—they won't let you fight if you don't. Now a torch, bright as a laser beam into my eyes. Makes me squeal—smash it away! Stop myself just in time.

  'X-rays,' he orders.

  Wheeled into another room—'Lie still!'

  What do they think I'm going to do, jump up and dance? I don't ever want to move again.

  Back to the noisy, bright room . . . like a casualty ward on a TV soapie—I'm not supposed to be here! The child is still crying. So are my parents, with sniffs and angry wipes at their eyes.

  Smiling faces: whiplash, not a broken neck. Doesn't broken neck mean dead? Pain slivers thought. Broken thumb but ankles only sprained—torn ligaments, chips of bone, not serious; one doesn't even deserve an X-ray.

  Now Hayden's here with a nurse behind him and someone who must be his mum. His face is whitish-grey; he has blood in his hair, on his shirt. 'Anna, I'm so sorry,' he says, and starts to cry.

  I don't want him to cry. It's all too hard. 'It's not your fault,' I tell him, and close my eyes.

  CHAPTER 2

  I wake in a bed littered with glass. It's morning . . . a hospital ward . . . I'm wearing a foam rubber collar and I'm surrounded by old ladies.

  The one in the bed by the window is so old that she's only semi-conscious. I hope she doesn't die today. The others are old but awake: Mrs Hogan is beside me, and in the bed across is Ruby.

  I try to sit up. I can't. I'm anchored to the bed by pain. I try again, and yelp like a trodden-on puppy. God, this is so humiliating!

  A girl appears. Fiona, her name badge says. Student nurse.

  'I'm supposed to do your neurological obs.' She studies the slip of paper in her palm. 'Are you alert and orientated?'

  Alert enough to know I'm desperate for the toilet! 'Yes.'

  A torch waves like a question mark. 'I have to look
at your eyes.'

  You're not flashing that in my face again! 'Shine it on the ceiling and watch me look at it.'

  She obeys gratefully. Pushing my luck, I ask if she can help me to the toilet. She says she doesn't know, she'll have to ask someone; disappears and doesn't come back.

  Peeing must be next week's lesson.

  Next is Sister in Charge of Tablets. She clanks with keys, and I think she'll be high enough to know about bladders.

  Too high, she's gone right past. The trolley can't be left alone, she says.

  'It's not alive,' Ruby mutters. 'It won't escape.'

  Tablet Sister ignores her. Do I want something for pain?

  Of course I do: arsenic, heroin, I don't care—I'll swallow a handful.

  'Please,' I say. But I still need to use the toilet.

  Another nurse comes but this is worse, she's got a bedpan—she can't be serious, I can't use that, it's disgusting—please let me go to the toilet! She says I'm not allowed out of bed; it's this or nothing.

  She's sliding the pan towards my bottom; my right hand is the only part of me not injured, but somehow I have to lift my hips and hop on top, lying down. My neck shrieks. So do I. The nurse is not amused. 'If you'd just relax,' she snaps, 'it wouldn't hurt so much.' She bustles off to bully some other new inmate.

  'Busy Butt,' says Ruby. 'Look at the way she flaps it! Thinks she rules the world.' That wasn't the way I thought old ladies talked.

  Suddenly the curtain between my bed and Mrs Hogan's is whipped shut, and the sheet is whisked off my legs. A short, stout grey man leading a crowd of white coats gives me an 'I'm too busy for you' glance and reaches for the clipboard at the foot of my bed.

  I'm wearing a short backless nightgown designed by a pervert. I feel as naked as I am. 'Hello,' I say, but only the young doctor from Casualty gives me a quick smile before launching into a coded speech to his big boss, the small grey man.

  'MVA, last night,' I pick out from the medico-babble.

  'Seventeen years old. Closed head injury; soft tissue injuries to the neck.'

  'X-rayed?' barks the god.

  'Yes,' says the young one, as he spouts off another mind-numbing stream of gibberish. It sounds impressive. It doesn't sound like me. Seventeen years old is the only thing I understand, and I wish he'd stopped there.

  Now it's Tablet Sister's turn; she discusses my pain and how I slept. The pain has nothing to do with me, apparently; don't mind me, I'm just the body that owns it.

  I lie there, legs pressed tight together and my good hand clutching my nightie, as quiet and still as the dummy they want me to be. Suddenly the sheet is whipped back up to neatness; the group turns to Mrs Hogan, and I'm invisible again.

  How could this happen to me? Things like this only happen to other people. That's how I know it's not real.

  Mum's here. I'm surprised by how glad I am to see her, clinging to her as fiercely and desperately as a child.

  She unpacks a bag, a dressing gown, her new blue nightie, toothbrush and hairbrush, deodorant and talc. No mirror. She flusters, says she's lost her compact.

  Delicately, tenderly, she begins to comb my hair. Half a windscreen seems to be tangled through it, embedded in every strand of my falling-out braid. The shards plink into the bag taped to the side of my bed. Mum's fingers probe and soothe.

  She's still at it when Dad arrives with Bronny and Matt. They hang back, twisting awkward feet at the end of my bed while Dad tiptoes up and kisses me gingerly. 'Come on,' he says, 'show Anna what you've got for her.'

  Drawings. Bronny's is a card, with flowers and a black and white cat I recognise as Sally, Get Well printed neatly inside.

  Matthew's is 'You in the ambulance,' he explains, 'and that's the car, all smashed.'

  'Oh, Matt!' says Mum, and 'Sorry,' says Dad, 'I should have checked.'

  Bronwyn is turning green. Mum grabs her quickly and drags her out to the corridor. 'It's a bit hot in there,' she calls.

  But I can hear Bronny wailing, 'I couldn't even tell it was Anna!'

  Dad asks quickly if I've seen the doctor. I describe the ward round. Dad erupts—my placid father, incandescent in white rage—'Tell this cowboy . . . '

  Matt pipes up, 'Are there cowboys in hospital?'

  'No,' I say, and thank God, it's time for Dad to take them to school. Mum will stay a little longer, all day if I like, but I know that's impossible, she'd have to close the nursery. I say I'd rather sleep. Dad asks if I know his work number—of course I don't, I never ring him at work. He hands over his card. Peter Duncan, Chartered Accountant, will come as soon as I need him, cancel appointments to be here in a moment.

  Come on, God, what have I done to deserve this? If you want to kill me, do it quickly. Punch my teeth out one by one; pry my fingernails off with rusty nails, anything but this, this has gone right off the borders of pain and into another galaxy. I can't take it!

  Painkillers bring me back to earth. I'm propped up in bed on an arrangement of pillows when Hayden appears, looking even taller than usual, broad shoulders and big hands awkward in this sterile environment. I feel breathless at the sight of him; my hands are shaky, my heart pounding. I've never felt this way about anyone before.

  He's brought me a bunch of white carnations. 'They're not much, compared to all those.' He gestures to the perfect cellophane-covered arrangements which have poured in during the day: from the school, the karate club, Aunt Jackie in Perth, Oma and Opa in Holland. 'I didn't know if you'd even want to talk to me.'

  'It wasn't your fault. And everyone says I'll be right in a couple of weeks; it's no big deal.'

  'You weren't there,' he says, illogically but truly, and corrects himself, 'you don't know what it was like—I can still hear you screaming. Then I thought you were dead. We jemmied the door off and tried to lift you out but you grabbed your neck and screamed again, and we stopped till the ambulance came.'

  I try to remember, but it's someone else's story; no memory surfaces.

  Dad comes in early next morning to catch the ward round; he wants to know whether I should be transferred to a Melbourne hospital, for specialised care.

  Mr Osman, the great orthopaedic god, is not impressed. 'Yarralong District Hospital,' he snaps condescendingly, 'is well equipped to deal with your daughter's injuries.' He goes on to explain the plan for the day: my thumb needs an operation—it's in eleven pieces; he's going to try to screw it together.

  I don't want a general anaesthetic; I've seen 'GP' and documentaries; I know it will hurt my neck. I don't think I'll live if the pain gets worse. He promises an 'arm block' and Dad signs the consent forms; I feel so old, but I'm not old enough to sign my own name.

  A few hours later the anaesthetist pumps me full of Valium till I'm floating and witty—except that my brain's lost contact with my body, so my mouth doesn't work.

  Alex, the young doctor, returns in the afternoon, when everything's reconnected itself. (He's gorgeous; I've just noticed. This is not how I want to meet gorgeous men.) The operation is a success; the long bone of my thumb has been screwed neatly back together again. 'You'll make metal detectors scream.'

  I smile because he is; I'm not sure how I feel about being a walking alarm bell.

  'But the joint at the base of your thumb . . . I'm afraid it's in twelve pieces now. It was pretty well smashed.'

  Success must mean the whole thing didn't drop off. Matt is wearing jeans, Bronwyn's check blouse, and Mum's straw gardening hat.

  'He's a cowboy,' Mum explains.

  This must be a mistake; life isn't supposed to be like this. Pain's supposed to be nasty but bearable, like period pain or cracking a rib. Nobody tells you that real pain is more than something in your body, it's a black vortex that engulfs your mind, leaving you wondering if there's a border between life and death and which side you're on. It leaves you knowing you're not the person you always thought you were, knowing you're not strong or brave, not even a person, just a speck in the maelstrom.

  'I never th
ought I'd see this—Anna Duncan sitting still!'

  'Haven't you got the nurses organised into aerobics yet?' Jenny, Caroline and I have been together since the first day of Year 7, though we're all so different we sometimes wonder why. Neither of them cares about sport, and I live for it; on everything else they're the two extremes—even physically, though they're both shorter than me. Jenny's bubbly, warm, disorganised, with mousy-brown fluffy hair—rounder than she wants to be, but guys find her very attractive. Caroline's sharp, clever and petite, with very dark, very glossy neat hair, fastidious about her appearance and everything she puts in or on her body, and ultra-organised—we foresee a great career in computers for her.

  Jenny rushes in to see me right after school, still in checked dress and white socks, not bothering to go home to change. Caroline comes later, looking cool and perfect and bringing little presents, flowers or talc or strawberries.

  It's the best part of the day, the Jenny then Caroline time.

  Morning pans are late again. Ruby rings first, then Mrs Hogan, then me. 'Try all together,' Mrs Hogan suggests, but that doesn't work either. Nurses bustle by in the corridors: 'We can't last forever!' Ruby calls after their disappearing, starched blue backs.

  Tablet Sister, busy sisters, the man cleaning the floors—'Don't jolt the bed!' Ruby orders. 'I won't be responsible for what happens.'

  Breakfast comes and goes; more nurses pass.

  'Wish I was a man,' Mrs Hogan moans. 'Chuck out the flowers and use a vase.'

  I eye my flowers; decide it wouldn't work; punch my bell again. Ruby shouts. Mrs Hogan looks desperate and warns Ruby not to make her laugh. The body in the corner groans; the blankets shift and an unmistakable stench seeps out.

  Footsteps in the hall. We won't let this one get past.

  'Tea, ladies? Cold drink?'

  Poor man. It's not his fault we're hysterical, two old women and a girl, helpless as—not babies, babies have nappies, at least—helpless as a patient in a hospital bed.

  'Sorry, Sister!' says Ruby, from behind her curtain.

  'That's all right,' says Busy Butt, grater-voiced, wiping her shoe. 'Just let me manage the pan next time.'