Beads of sweat ran all the way down her back.
She kept talking. She told her story as cutlery scraped against plates. She gave them facts and figures. A child can be submerged in ten seconds, lose consciousness in two minutes and sustain permanent brain damage in four to six minutes. Nine out of ten children who have died in the water were being watched by adults. A child can drown in as little as five centimetres of water. She talked about the importance of first aid training and how thirty thousand Australians died of cardiac arrest every year because there was no one around with the basic CPR knowledge to save their lives. She talked about the wonderful work that CareFlight did and how they were always grateful for donations.
When she’d finished, the president of the association gave her a box of chocolates and asked her fellow members to join her in a round of applause for their very interesting guest speaker today. Very informative, and thank goodness her daughter was all recovered and maybe next time Clementine could come and play her cello for them!
Afterwards, as she was heading for the door, her dress damp against her back, a man approached her, wiping his mouth with his napkin. She steeled herself. Sometimes people couldn’t resist coming up afterwards to tell her off, to inform her that she should never have taken her eyes off her toddler.
But as soon as she saw the man’s face she knew he wasn’t one of those. He was the other sort. He had the relaxed authority of someone who had once been the boss, but the bruised eyes of someone who had suffered a devastating loss. It was a look around the eyes like fruit that has gone soft and is close to rotting.
He had a story he needed to share. It was her job to listen. This was her real penance.
He would probably cry. The women didn’t cry. Elderly women were as tough as nails but it seemed that men got softer as they aged; their emotions caught them off guard, as if some protective barrier had been worn away by time.
She braced herself.
‘My grandson would have been thirty-two this weekend,’ he said.
‘Ah,’ said Clementine.
She waited for the story. There was always a chain of events that had to be explained: if this hadn’t happened, if this had happened. In this case it had all started with a broken phone. His daughter’s downstairs phone was broken, so she ran upstairs to answer it, and at that moment the next-door neighbour knocked on the front door and got talking to his son-in-law, and in the meantime the little fella got outside. He dragged a chair over to the pool gate. There was a tennis ball floating in the pool. He was trying to get to the ball. He liked playing cricket. Was pretty good at it too. He was a little pocket rocket. Couldn’t sit still. You wouldn’t have thought he’d be big enough to drag that chair but he did it. Determined.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Clementine.
‘Well, I just wanted to tell you that you are doing a good thing,’ said the man. He hadn’t cried, thank God. ‘Raising awareness. It’s a good thing. Makes people think twice. Families don’t get over it when something like this happens. My daughter’s marriage broke up. My wife was never the same again. She was the one on the phone, you see. Never forgave herself for ringing at that time. Not her fault, of course, or the neighbour’s fault, just bad luck, bad timing, but there you go. Accidents happen. Anyhow. You did a good job today, pet. Spoke very well.’
‘Thank you,’ said Clementine.
‘You sure you don’t want to stay and join us for dessert? They do a very tasty pavlova here.’
‘That’s nice of you,’ said Clementine. ‘But I have to go.’
‘No worries, off you go, I’m sure you’re busy,’ said the man. He patted her on the arm.
She headed towards the door, released.
‘Tom,’ he said suddenly.
She turned back, steeled herself. Here it came.
His eyes filled with tears. Overflowed. ‘The little fella’s name. In case you wondered. His name was Tom.’
All the way home she cried: for the little fella, for the grandmother who’d made the phone call, for the grandfather who’d shared his story, and for the parents, because their marriage hadn’t survived, and because it seemed like Clementine’s marriage wasn’t going to survive either.
chapter sixty-seven
It was early Thursday evening when Tiffany walked into the living area and saw Dakota sitting cross-legged on the window seat. She was reading a book in a little circle of lamplight, the blue fluffy blanket over her legs, while raindrops slid down the window behind her. Barney was curled up in her lap. Dakota was absent-mindedly caressing one of his ears as she read.
Tiffany caught herself just in time from exclaiming, ‘You’re reading!’ and said instead, ‘You’re … there!’
Dakota looked up from her book quizzically.
‘I didn’t know where you were,’ said Tiffany.
‘I’m here,’ said Dakota. Her eyes returned to her book.