AfterZoe

By Amanda Hickie

Zoe's not completely happy with the way her life has turned out but she's even less impressed with her death. She finds herself in a place of perpetual contentment and bureaucratic rules, designed for maximum serenity, administered by the pragmatic Angela. Most of the population enjoy their eternity with the aid of an elixir which ensures they forget their loved ones, but Zoe doesn't want to forget. She joins an underground resistance group and starts to explore the might-have-beens with an old lover. Zoe's instance on her right to absolute memory becomes more complex when her husband shows up.

Zoe finds herself wrestling with whether she could be herself without her memories, whether her right to make the wrong choice trumps the happiness of the whole society and what it would take to be happy for eternity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amanda Hickie
• Release date: Apr 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781502204332

Book preview

PROLOGUE

WE ARE WASTING OUR time, you and me. I can tell you now how this ends but you already know. It’s no secret, just a matter of timing and differing lines, but all trains are marked terminus.

If you had a say in how you got there would you choose to live to a ripe old age? Hold out for the telegram in the nursing home on your hundredth? I’m too selfish for that. I’d choose to go quickly and painlessly (of course) and not too young. But most of all, I’d choose to go first. You can cry at my funeral. Not being here doesn’t bother me. Missing the people I love does.

That’s the end of the story. In tragedies it happens quicker—unluckily or unhappily. In romances it takes longer, and a bit of imagination. The end is not ‘they lived happily ever after’ because after doesn’t last for ever. It’s in the marriage vows that all those princes and princesses surely said—till death did them part. That’s where the story really ends, and their promises to love too, it seems.

But I’m not sure where the beginning of this story is. When Zoe met Linden? When Zoe died? Or way back when Nick just couldn’t take being nice anymore and decided to spice life up and call it an ideological stance.

Nick will do for a starting place. He’s not really like anyone else. A little like the Angels maybe, but obviously not one of them. If I told you what he did, you’d think it must be exciting and action-packed but mostly it involves staying indoors. And he’d be to blame for that impression. He’s good at the PR, not the follow up.

But he looks the part and he doesn’t intentionally deceive people. If they come with preconceptions, he doesn’t dissuade them. He’s easy to follow, he’s all they’ve got and he doesn’t lie to them with his words whatever his appearance may do. He’s more thoughtful than you’d think and not so much bad as possessing a short attention span with plenty of time to be bored.

And don’t get the wrong idea about the place. To start with, it isn’t a geographical location. It can’t be, when they have to move so often. They live in whatever suitable space they can find —no hotter or colder than anywhere else. Sometimes when he’s particularly bored Nick will do something to really get up the Angels’ noses and they’ll come looking for him. If the volunteers move fast enough they can bunk out before the authorities get there. More often he loses people. A few weeks later they’ll see them in the street looking ... content.

Nick’s not big on organisation. He’s more at home making policy and mischief. Though he might have come up with the idea of the register and he’s definitely the one who provokes the Angel’s raids, Winney deals with the moves, handholds people through the deepest grief, keeps records of everyone that arrives and cross-checks them with the member contact requests. It’s a huge job that spawned an underground movement, a kind of resistance. But a fluid one. People come and go depending how eager they are to find someone. The ones that get involved, that form the ground troops—meeting new arrivals, sussing out who might be sympathetic, just plain taking names—they are the most likely to get caught and counselled. So many have been lost over time that way or through raids, that Nick and Winney are the only long-termers. Sometimes members get tired of all the waiting and hoping. They take the counselling just to make it end.

So it’s really not Hell. That’s a completely distorted idea—the other side’s propaganda. It’s more a loose affiliation of misfits.

Angela fights back with rules. So many rules. Not the way I would arrange it. You wouldn’t need rules in my perfect heaven. Everything would be right. All my favourite clothes would be brand new. I’d hear every song that means something to me for the first time again. Every peach would taste like the peaches I gorged myself on when I was a child. And the strawberries like the ones I ate fresh and warm picked from the straw in a cold climate.

In heaven I’d look in the mirror and what I saw would make me happy. In heaven I’d never say anything stupid and if I did no one would remember, least of all me. In heaven, every cup of tea would taste like the first one of the morning. All the small things would be right and I wouldn’t wonder why the big things didn’t make me happy. In my heaven, everyone I loved would love me.

But I’d get lonely, being the first.

END

One

IT SHOULD HAVE HAD tidy edges, some sense of meaning. Instead it was just a thing that happened, in among a whole lot of something elses.

Zoe was woken by rain on the corrugated iron roof. It was one of the things she liked about this house, how when the rain fell hard it sounded like it would burst through. She pressed her face against the glass of the back door. Liam wriggled his way between her legs and the wooden frame, sensing that his mother was acting like a child, that she was not, just now, with him. She pushed against him with her legs and he squirmed. The glass, the whole door, was cool to touch. Water streamed down the yard, turning away at the back door to flood down the side of the house. She wanted to step out and immerse her feet but the squirming reminded her that Liam hadn’t had breakfast yet.

The rain trapped her. She wanted to be outside, in the sun she hadn’t been able to enjoy yesterday because she’d been too busy working. It would rain all day and maybe tomorrow as well—pelting rain that stung when it hit you, pooled in the streets, made jokes of the umbrellas. It fell so heavily she couldn’t look through it, only at it.

The storm blew in from the ocean. Distant flashes of lightning hit the water and she felt like she could see every bolt from here to New Zealand, dozens of tiny sparks. The wind rose suddenly and the air, still, moist and heavy, became cold. She shivered. Banks of clouds, dark and thick, rolled toward the coast.

The light in the yard broke in orange shafts ahead of the storm clouds. As if to mock her attempts at a garden, they lit on the single scrawny lemon tree that had been there when they arrived. While punnets of seedlings withered and died, the tree still provided a single lemon when required. Without warning, the storm was above her. The thunder no longer a distant rumble, but exhilaratingly sharp. She tried to count the seconds between the flash and the crash, but they came so hard on top of each other it was impossible to tell which went with which. Almost as if the lightning was falling all around them. The rain intensified, making the thunder barely audible over the terrible white noise. She didn’t hear Alex come up behind her until he shouted in her ear.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Just watching. It’s wonderful.’

‘Yes.’

They stood together in silence, engulfed by the noise and the light, overwhelmed by nature’s attempts to obliterate them.

Liam squirmed again. She pulled herself from the door and turned to the kitchen. The luxury of Saturday breakfast. No need to rush to work, an hour and a half until Liam’s swimming lesson. Time to make something slowly and enjoy it. Time to sleep in, if she wasn’t always woken by Liam’s cold feet as he crawled into the bed, by his little fingers creeping exploratorially into her ear, by his stage-whispered ‘Is it breakfast time yet?’

Alex paused in the doorway to the kitchen, watching them. He was halfway through a yawn, an arm up and out. Between the old t-shirt, which she knew was covered in tiny holes, and the loose p.j. pants, he showed a strip of belly. Liam ran to him shouting ‘Daddy, Daddy’ as if he hadn’t seen him last thing at night. They both had goofy half smiles. Alex was cocooned and content, Liam still leapt at every moment like a puppy. For Alex and Liam there was only them, now. She wanted that, not the nagging anxiety of wondering whether work took away from family or family from work.

In the kitchen they moved and created, pretending on one side and believing on the other that this hour caught between two worlds—the week of work and the weekend of good parenthood—was all there was. She was so good at the pretence that for the duration of the cooking and the sharing of a long slow breakfast, she became what she tried to be—part of this world where only the three of them mattered.

Alex made bacon and eggs cooked in one pan, which had been big enough for two of them but with three no longer fit. The bacon was crammed in one corner and cooked unevenly so that burnt was side by side with undercooked. The eggs were crisp on the bottom but too runny on top. Alex arranged Liam’s plate with egg eyes, a rasher mouth and toast soldier hair. Liam ate the bacon in one mouthful and started begging for the rashers on their plates. His eggs would go to waste. She watched the clock ticking off freedom.

The heat was returning and the rain was settling in, evaporating when it hit the ground so that, even this early, the air was thick and hard to breathe. The yard was silver under the grey cloud-filtered light. Large drops of water hung from the lemon tree and from the cord tied from fence to fence for a clothes line. Fine droplets shimmered on each blade of grass. The usually bleached fence palings that marked out the limits of their private world were dark and shiny. Liam’s toys, scattered around the yard, had a wet sleek coating.

❖

It was already nine twenty-eight when they dropped Alex at the shops. His list was constructed on the fly.

‘Toilet paper.’

‘Oh, stuff to clean the bathroom.’

‘Got that. But not dishwashing liquid.’

Zoe circled the block encompassing the pool but it was impossible to find a close park. She knew from experience that it was equally difficult to get Liam to walk any distance back. On the second circuit she came to a spot she had passed up the first time round as being too tight. They were already late which made it worth a try. As she pulled forward to start her reverse, the car behind nosed up to her tail. She waved him round, he sat. She waved him round again, the honking started from the growing queue.

‘Why are they honking Mummy?’

‘Not now.’

As each impatient driver crawled passed her, she tried to ignore the faces yelling through wound up windows. A new queue formed as she started her reverse. Flustered, she accelerated too fast, moved in at too sharp an angle and ended up wedged against the kerb, her nose out in the traffic as it streamed around her. A spot came free a couple of cars ahead. A big spot next to a driveway, ripe to simply pull forward into. In a small break in the traffic, she made her bid for it.

‘Quick, out of the car. Now, now, now. We’re already late.’

In one hand she clutched the swimmers and towel. With the other she towed Liam, his legs flailing to keep up, past the front desk where a bored staff member sat, her eyes barely moving to watch them as they hurried through the gates. Zoe willed the girl not to ask for their pass. She threw their stuff onto a bleacher and set about stripping Liam. The class had already started.

‘Put your arm in here. No, in here.’

‘Mum! That hurts.’

‘You’re putting your head in the armhole. Hurry up.’

Liam wriggled his arms and head into the swimming shirt, and the naked bottom half of his body independently danced a stamping jig to keep warm. She pulled his swimming trunks on over the rounded belly, the still chubby legs, turned him and gave him a push.

‘I’m cold.’

‘You’ll be fine in the water.’

He took off, sprinting towards the pool exuberantly. It was exciting to see how free Liam was. Zoe had the urge to run after him, to regain that freedom, that certainty. Once it had been part of her life to swim the length of the pool underwater, holding her breath, to sit on the bottom, to belly flop. Next week she would bring her costume. She would dive bomb into the deep end and splash the serious swimmers doing their laps. Liam would find that funny. That would be enough.

Because she knew she should, she took a moment to watch Liam leap in and called out, ‘Careful Liam, don’t leave the edge until Janelle says you can.’ But Liam was in the water and her authority only extended over land.

The papers she’d brought to look over were dry and unappealing. If she waited a few minutes, there was a possibility that one of the other parents might start up a conversation but for the most part they formed familiar pairs. She suspected, not for the first time, that everybody else had planned to have their children at the same time as a conveniently geographically and emotionally close friend so as always to have company on occasions like this. Having not looked ahead sufficiently to anticipate the boredom of swimming classes, she was left sitting on her own.

The pool’s glass roof was scratched and battered by time and hail. It gave off a translucent glow and a noise that was the sharper, higher pitched relative of the tin roof at home. She settled down to proofread a report for work. Although she would have preferred a book, this way it wouldn’t be hanging over her all weekend. Not that they were doing anything tonight. It was a Saturday and they had a child. Which meant a night in and television. But they were doing it together.

Before too long, a small wet hand placed itself on the knee of her jeans. Liam’s lips were a plummy shade of blue. His whole body shivered rhythmically.

‘Are you cold?’

‘No.’

‘You’re shivering.’

‘No.’

‘Let’s get you dressed.’

The water ran along clumped strands of his hair, falling on his nose, his shoulders. His swim shirt and pants were Day-Glo colours in a frenetic design. Easy to spot on the beach, except for the hordes of other kids with identical tops. It clung wet to his body and produced a slow drip onto her shoes. She re-stripped him, this time slower, calmer. He stood before her, glistening, naked, shaking, so small she could wrap his whole body, legs and all, in the towel and pick up a bundle with only his head peeking out. ‘I’m a bug’ he giggled as she rubbed him through the towel.

❖

Another oasis in the day, a temporary lull in the rain. The three of them, sitting at a cafe. With the exception of a newsagent, every one of the row of shops facing the beach was a cafe. She craned her neck to see if the name was on the awning above her. One of the large drops gathered at the edge fell cool and firm on her cheek. The name didn’t matter. Although they each had an individual style—this one steel and glass, that one mismatched op shop chairs—they were all differing embodiments of the grown-up life she felt at home in.

For her and Alex, they ordered lattes and focaccias. Liam asked for a plain one with just ham and a chocolate milkshake. This life fit her like a comfortable shirt.

The footpath was crammed with tables and chairs, all spilling over with people just like her but not like her at all. Even in the wet, every cafe was packed. Across the road the cars parked crazily around corners, trying to squeeze in. Down from the road to the surf a long grassy slope spread out like a flood plain and stretched all the way to where the ground started to rise again on the other side. Little shelters dotted the flat and on a sunny day each would be claimed temporarily by a tribe with salads and bottles of soft drink and coins for their turn at the barbecues. Various games of soccer would intersect, coalesce and separate. Today only one was occupied—a hardy soul perched, book in hand, staring out to the crashing waves.

A few stoic parents dripped and watched over the play equipment, one eye on their child, one on the regrouping storm clouds. Although the parents outnumbered the visible kids, she knew there were children hidden inside the giant starfish—Liam’s favourite place in the playground, its interior was encrusted with marbles, kewpie dolls, tap heads, matchbox cars and dozens of other treasures that each child pushed and argued to rub, hold or just sit next to. Down on the sand a few solid toddlers, excited by the wild movement of the water and its promise of freedom, had stripped naked despite the wind and wet. They were being more or less successfully restrained by a parent.

Liam and Alex talked while Zoe watched the rhythmic drip from the awning and let their conversation wash over her. They talked about what Liam did at day care that week. Which kid pushed who, and who were best friends. They talked about whether it was rude to say ‘bottom’ and what got you a time out. Zoe let her mind drift and attempted to browse the newspaper being read by the man at the next table, upside down. In a week or two she would be here again and the beach would look the same with more or less sunshine and the people would look the same but be different. It seemed impossible that there would be a last time. The most she could imagine was a gradual evolution. That each time the experience would alter subtly so that one day it would not be this. Yet she felt there would still be cafes and a beach and the three of them.

She tried to picture them here with Liam at ten, fifteen, twenty-three. Everything about the scene remained static, but in Liam’s seat was an imagined adult that she couldn’t bring into focus. She could imagine a twenty-three-year-old, just not Liam. And she couldn’t imagine being the person who was the mother of a twenty-three year old Liam. As a teenager, she had been able to clearly picture what she and her life would be at different stages—even imagining what it would be like to be old and the only one left standing, maybe take in lodgers, young men and women to help her around the house. As she experienced the unpredictable eddies of life these images had become perturbed and blurred until she couldn’t imagine what it was to be any time but now.

❖

The two of them hung around the entrance of the museum near the other parents, single or in pairs, who they noddingly knew from day care. Some with older children who had parties of their own or sport or just friends, dropped and ran. A gaggle of kids tore around the foyer, revved up by the promise of cake and fun. The parents actively ignored the rising noise, trying hard not to be the one to intervene first. No one wanted to be the strictest parent but more than that they didn’t want the scene—the tears and embarrassment of a loud, self-justifying ‘But he was doing it first, no one told him to stop.’

The rain had started up again, heavier than ever. Along the side of the road, the gutters rushed and swirled, covered with bobbing cigarette butts, plastic bags and leaves. A large stick wedged into the grating of the drain and gathered detritus, creating a pool at the intersection which late arrivals jumped over or in, depending on whether their parents were quick-witted. The whole road became a stream, the small variations in the bitumen giving rise to a multitude of overlapping wakes, like kinetic op art.

Liam stood in a group at the entrance playing chicken with the large drops falling from the overhang. A sandstone channel ran across the doorway, not deep enough to drain the rain, only divert it. The kids danced along its edge, at first not daring to wet their good clothes—splashing the water with the end of a sandal, being lightly sprayed with the spatter kicked up by the largest drops. One adventurous and fearless soul, or maybe just a child with less developed causal reasoning, jumped forward without warning both feet together. The backwash hit kids, parents, museum staff, innocent passers-by, and left the perpetrator dry from the knees up. The child’s mother rushed forward apologising and scolding in one breath.

‘Here we go.’ Alex muttered to her. A brightly dressed staff member had appeared and, pied piper like, bore off the children. The party mother followed, her head turning back to those left behind –’Three o’clock then.’

Although they were free, Zoe stood for a moment to watch the line disappear. It felt like cheating, wagging school, to let some complete stranger walk off with Liam. Did any of the other parents feel this guilty release? She wanted to be protective, to follow his small form and sit beside him, but he didn’t even notice she wasn’t with the group. He was in his tribe.

‘He’ll be okay. Let’s go. We’ve got an hour and a half. What do you want to do?’

❖

Since Alex was driving, she had a chance to sit back, listen to the radio and tune out. This was the only time she got to listen to music now, in the car, and then only heard it when Liam wasn’t there. The half an hour to and from work was her time. And scarce moments like this. Thank heaven for organised birthday parties.

Alex had in mind a book store on the other side so they headed towards the bridge. She didn’t care where they went, she’d browse anywhere. If they had time they’d grab a coffee before heading back to pick up Liam. Then the organised part of the day would be over and they would head home, try to get Liam to bed early, open a bottle of wine and see what there was on television. If one of them felt enthusiastic they might watch a movie. It might even be a good one, but not usually on a Saturday.

They bumped along the Cahill like an ancient and not very exciting roller coaster, round the short tunnel, which she always associated with the glowing red signs—Please turn off engine while stopped. As a child she had been terrified when the traffic jammed that they’d be suffocated by some driver who couldn’t follow instructions. The cars merged and merged and merged. Through the dappled window, past the dark grey road, she gazed at the pock-marked steel-blue water and the buildings and bush which lined the harbour in shades of brown and green-grey. They passed the block of flats that seemed to lean into the traffic, built out of square Tupperware stacked by a toddler. How much outrage there had been over its brutality while it was being built. Now it just was.

The rain became harder again and the spray from the car tyres mixed with the droplets clinging to the windscreen to create a frosted glass world. They flew along in the fast lane, centimetres from the oncoming traffic, unable to see more than a car or two ahead. An idiot in the wrong lane tried to push across four lanes of traffic and, after being honked and nearly sideswiped, missed the exit.

‘Oh well, he’s going to Newcastle.’

Zoe rested her head and allowed her eyes to defocus on the drops running down the windscreen. The light bending through gave each a white halo. The scene behind was blurred by the whole pane and then distorted in miniature in each drop. Alex was singing along to some teen pop goddess. He picked up these things from some of the kids at his work. She knew better than to laugh at this man at the cusp of middle age, singing sex kitten songs, so she just smirked. He knew how he looked and clowned it up for her. She was glad to be his audience, but more so that she was the only one.

The brake lights on the car in front lit up, creating refracted flowers through the windscreen that were erased and redrawn each time the wipers passed over. Although Alex stared directly at them, he seemed not to react.

‘Alex, watch out.’

Nothing.

She spoke louder. ‘They’re stopping.’

‘I’m trying.’

Her foot was braced to the floor where the pedal would have been. The vibration of Alex pumping the brakes travelled to her. But there was no effect. The road turned slightly but the car slid straight ahead at a tangent to their lane. It narrowly missed the bumper of the car in front. Inexorably they headed towards the median strip and, on it, one of the pylons of the overpass. She leant forward, willing the car on just a little to miss it. Shock ran through her like a physical jolt—hitting the pylon wasn’t the problem. Not hitting it would put them over the median strip and into the oncoming cars. With a sense of inevitability the car glided gracefully past the pylon. The front wheels lifted on the bump. She was aware of the quiet and the look of surprise and concentration on Alex’s face as he thought through his options, gripping the wheel in frustration.

Zoe felt an impact and braced herself for pain. A red light, too close, too bright, filled her field of vision. Stickiness trickled across her lips, salty like Liam’s runny nose. Alex was talking but the sound was drowned out by a noise she couldn’t place. It didn’t come from the people looking in. Or from the passing cars. It wasn’t anything to do with Alex, although his mouth was moving, his face contorted. She tried to concentrate on the movement of his lips but a beating noise kept distracting her. That and the sensation of being fanned from every direction in time with the sound. If she could only grasp at his voice and fill her mind with all the familiar things she associated with him—listening to his breathing as he slept in on Sunday mornings, watching him play with Liam in their backyard, the reflections from the TV screen on his face—she might be able to anchor herself. For a moment she caught his words. Something about holding on. Something about Liam.

All other sensations were blotted out by the sirens, the beating fans and, perfusing everything, redness. Red flashing lights, red lettering on the ambulance, the red of her blood and red, red wings lifting her up. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go but she didn’t know if she had a choice. There were no words, no communications, no indication that if she said ‘I’m not ready’ they would have listened. No sign that behind the rhythm of the wings there was anyone to be listening.

In a frozen moment, she looked down at Alex holding her in his arms, and waited for her life to pass before her. She saw only death. Her own and one a long time ago. Linden—closed eyes, empty face, white sheets. It was surely wrong that such a slow struggle as his should be represented in her mind by the clean and peaceful image of that hospital bed.

And that a momentary slip, one hesitation by Alex in a life like any other filled with hesitation and uncertainties, had become this full blown drama, this death. A weight pulled on her, the need to hear Alex’s words. The drag of her desire matched the uplift of the wings and she hung for a while and watched as she let him down by not knowing how she might live.

Alex’s anger and need tugged down, the powerful words that passed between her and Linden in the days of the clean white sheet wrenched up. Alex’s face crumpled and broke, and she cast around for a reason. The only one she found was her own voice saying, ‘I made a commitment to Linden.’

❖

The moments before the crash unfolded so methodically, so peacefully, that Alex was bewildered he didn’t register any noise, any impact. Their car was somehow facing the wrong way, as if joining the flow of traffic on this side

Reviews for AfterZoe

[susemca · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a great read, thought-provoking and out of left-field, and also familiar and conversational. I was drawn in to the worlds that the author has created, and I enjoyed being part of the day to day life, and the afterlife, of Zoe and the other characters. The book is available on-line and there are some hard copies available too. Kept me thinking right to the end, and beyond...

[kristen11-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The cover for this book is very off-putting. If I was simply going through a list of books, I wouldn't give a second glance to it. The plot is intriguing, and I feel a better suited cover image would help in showcasing that. Overall, the story is engaging, though it's not my normal type of read. There were times where I felt it droned on, but I kept with it. A touch of editing and polishing, and I would happily give this story another star or two.**I was gifted this book for free in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to the author and/or publisher.

[carebear36 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I received this book through GoodReads First Reads.This book had an interesting back-story, but I don't think the plot was active enough to keep me engaged with the text for long. Most of the characters were pretty passive and the ones who did act didn't really seem to have much of a plan. Even within Winney and Nick's rebel organization, they seem to work off of a vague principle and don't actively do much. Also, I think it would have been more interesting if Nick's past were elaborated on more thoroughly; there were vague references to it, but not enough to explain the actual set up of the afterlife. At certain points within the novel, I felt that the timeline got confusing between flashback from life and the present in the afterlife. The mythological references to Lethe water and Ambrosia were really cool though and I liked the overall idea of a different version of the afterlife. The idea was good, but there just wasn't enough plot-development or conclusion to really keep me interested.