*HUGE SUPERMASSIVE SPOILERS*
This is for you, for Christmas! If you don't celebrate Christmas, it's an early/late birthday present! Either way, you win! The original ending of All This Could End
, in case you're curious.
Probably a good idea not to read
this, if you've not read the book! Largely because you'll have no clue what's
going on. (Things are a lot more significant when you know who the characters
are.)
This continues on from about page 154 of the finished book. So pretend the whole epilogue didn't happen, okay?
*NO SERIOUSLY STOP NOW AND READ THE BOOK FIRST*
*IT'S THE ENDING OF THE BOOK*
*IT WILL GIVE AWAY A LOT OF PLOT FROM THE ACTUAL, FINISHED BOOK*
(also be aware this is not as ~polished as the finished novel is)
The original ending
They pause there, on the steps of
the bank, everyone watching, guns trained on Nina. The pause lasts only a
second, before a group of paramedics rush up to Spencer. What happens next
occurs so quickly Spencer doesn’t even have time to catch his breath.
Later,
it’ll be the subject of a huge police investigation. The inquiry will last
months, will chew up millions of taxpayer dollars, will end with three people
getting the sack, and be put down to a misjudgement, a bad decision. The
newspaper headlines will be never-ending, and the case of the Pretty family
will have endless press coverage. Charismatic, insane Sophia, her husband, and
their kids, too young to know better, will be the feature of many late-night
true-crime shows and a straight-to-television movie, much to Sophia’s delight.
But no one knows this yet. In the seconds and minutes afterwards, there will be
confusion. There will be panic. There will be shock.
In
the moment Nina raises her hands in surrender, a police sniper shoots – the
bullet hits just above her right eyebrow, piercing flesh and bone and brain in
milliseconds, and going right out the back of her head so quick that if not for
the 5-cent-coin size hole in her head, you wouldn’t think she’d been shot at
all. Spencer is close enough to be splattered with blood, and he hears a noise
like an animal dying and it might have come from his own mouth but he’s not
sure. Nina is dead long before she hits the ground.
And
what she thinks of, in that final moment, are all the good things that have come
before – learning to read palms from the old fortune teller, all the beautiful
animals at the vet’s, her brother’s laugh, waking up to sunshine, conversations
with lovely strangers, just the right song playing on the radio like a good
omen, talking to Spencer endlessly while sitting on the roof of his house and
imagining being surrounded by light, the feeling of always being on the verge
of something great, of being invincible, of being limitless. She feels the
sensation that this all could end, but it might also be the beginning.
Another deleted ending (You
may notice parts of this one ended up in the final book. This followed on from
the previous ending. I am prone to melodrama. I also really wanted to work in
another Smiths reference).
It’s like that Smiths song. It’s
ridiculous that, at a time like this, all of his experiences are relating back
to pop culture references but maybe that’s the only way he can make sense of
it. Maybe that’s the only way he can deal. Girlfriend in a coma.
Maybe
someday this’ll all become just a great story to tell at dinner parties – maybe
she will be with him, and maybe they won’t know the people who are hosting all
that well but after everyone’s third glass of wine, she’ll be explaining the
surgical scar just above her eyebrow. Telling them about her crazy childhood,
how the bullet only passed through one lobe and how, after weeks in a coma, she
awoke and was rehabilitated. How she learnt everything again, how painful it
was, but how she managed to live on. And Spencer will hoist up the right leg of
his pants and tell them about the bank, trace the line of his own scar. And
everyone will be awed.
Monica
was awed, certainly. Shocked into speaking. When Monica first arrived in
Spencer’s hospital room, she eyed the cast on his leg and said – the first
words she had spoken in three months – ‘Shit. And you reckon nothing exciting
ever happens to you.’ They were the most profound words Spencer thought he had
ever heard, but perhaps he was delirious on pain medication. He laughed and
sighed at once. When Monica found out it was Tom who’d shot Spencer – though
accidentally – she laughed (‘They’ll blame this on violent video games, for
sure,’ she said. ‘Twelve-year-olds shooting people!’).
‘No
more communicating through lollies, then?’ he asked.
‘Death
to conversation hearts,’ she said, grinning. She sat down by the window. A
chair badly in need of reupholstering, probably bought second-hand sometime in
the 60s, orange stuffing poking out through holes in the red vinyl. But the view
out of the window was nice, though Spencer tired of it after that first day, of
the park beside the hospital. Summer. If this were a normal summer, he’d be out
in that hazy heat. At the beach or at the pool or lying under a shady green
tree. This is not a normal summer. ‘Might keep up my vow of silence while I’m
at school, though. Annoying Ms Stanthorpe is just way too much fun.’
Monica was there
when the doctor told Spencer’s father they were hopeful that Nina would regain
consciousness after her surgery, that only one lobe had been affected, that her
chances of rehabilitation after a head wound were really quite good, all things
considered.
In the first few
days afterwards, Spencer wasn’t allowed up out of bed. Monica and his father
brought snippets of news about Nina and McDonald’s Happy Meals. Bridie arrived
at the very ending of visiting hours the second day, wearing a hot pink
leotard, a green tutu and several thousand strands of beads looped around her
neck and wrists and ankles.
‘You ought to watch
the news,’ she said upon making an entrance (Bridie never just walked into a
room, even a hospital room; she made an entrance), not bothering with
pleasantries. ‘We had journalists come to our house, you know? Mum absolutely
loved it. Lucky the swelling of her nose went down. Better they’re talking to
her than making stuff up. I heard a report saying you were twelve. And then one
that reckoned you were dying. I’ve been feeling really out of the loop.’
‘No hey, how’s it going, Spence, how’s the
bullet wound?’ said Monica.
‘The mute! She
speaks! Praise the lord!’ Bridie waved her hands above her head, beads jangling
together. All three of them laughed.
Bridie came
around and sat on the edge of Spencer’s bed and swept him up in a hug. ‘But
seriously,’ she said. ‘I’ve been really worried. Especially since I heard you
were on the brink of death. Wanted to make sure I was in the will, just in
case. To the endlessly brilliant Bridie,
I leave all my worldly possessions!’
Spence laughed.
‘Maybe I’ll let you have my laptop. Clear the browsing history, would you? Now
that I’ve promised it to you, you can’t smother me, though. There’s a witness.’
Bridie smiled,
paused. ‘Are we going to tiptoe around the whole “Nina being a criminal and now
possibly dying in this hospital” thing?’
‘You’re not much
of a tiptoer, Bridie.’
‘No. I’m not. You
know, after she left I wanted you to hate her and forget about her. As quickly
as possible. And you didn’t, and I knew you wouldn’t, because you’re too
forgiving of people and she was so nice to you and everyone else when she was
around. You still cared about her even though she left you like that. And now
this whole bank robbing thing… it makes everything a lot more complex.’
‘I can’t hate
her. She’s done bad things but she wouldn’t have done them if it were up to
her. And now she’s…’
‘Have you been up
to see her?’
‘Not yet. Not
allowed out of bed.’
‘Shall
we nick a wheelchair?’ suggested Monica, glancing up from her book.
Spence
laughed. ‘You’ve changed, Monica. Hanging out with that Tom kid.’ And there was
a pause as the three of them wondered where Tom was at that moment. ‘Maybe
we’ll get a wheelchair tomorrow. Go visiting.’
‘It’s
a date,’ said Bridie.
The police came
and asked lots of questions. Did he know about any criminal activities Nina or
her family were undertaking whilst they were friends? How could he have been
apparently so close to someone and not known that these things were going on?
Was she exceptionally good at keeping secrets or was Spencer exceptionally
unobservant? It wasn’t as if she had ever outright lied to him – had he asked so, do you and your family dabble in
criminal activities? Bit of bank robbing on a sunny Saturday morning? perhaps
she would’ve told him. He felt the police underestimated the downright
blindness that could be caused by someone wonderful and kind caring about you
as much as you cared about them. And it wasn’t as if it were really her. It was
her parents. And he could tell they just thought he was a stupid teenager. He
didn’t particularly care. He thought he was a stupid teenager too.
On the upside,
the entire incident had shook his father into action – maybe his ceasing to be
a zombie was only a temporary thing, at least until Spencer was out of hospital
and the calls from reporters and the police stopped and things returned to how
they were before, but still, Spencer was grateful that his dad was laughing
again. Monica talking made a big difference, too.
Things were not
as they had been before – things could never be again as they were before
Spencer’s mum had left (even if she returned now, they were all changed people
who wouldn’t slot together into a family neatly anymore) – but within his
family, things were better. If not for what had happened to Nina, the bank
robbery mightn’t have been such a terrible thing after all.
Sometimes, staring at the off-white ceiling in
the early hours of the morning, he hates her. He hates that she didn’t tell him
to begin with, that she didn’t tell the police earlier, that she left without
saying goodbye. He hates that he didn’t stop this from happening, that there
was nothing he could have done. But she could have. He hates that she didn’t. It’s
not her fault she was shot in the head, that she’s in a coma. But there were so
many things he wish could have been different, things that might have prevented
it from happening. And she certainly had influence over some of them.
Three days after the bank robbery
and his arrival in hospital, Bridie insists upon taking Spencer to see Nina in
intensive care.
‘She’s
still unconscious,’ says Bridie, helping him out of bed and into a wheelchair.
‘But it’s really not that bad. She looks all right. Maybe you’ll wake her up.’
She winks. 'Our very own sleeping beauty. Though you'd have to be dashingly
handsome for that to work, and really...'
‘Did
you steal this wheelchair?’ interrupts Spencer. ‘I mean, shouldn’t we wait
until a doctor gives permission for you to drag me around the hospital?’
‘I
borrowed it. You need a wheelchair. This is not just a joyride,’ says Bridie.
‘The doctors are busy. Your dad seemed okay with it.’
Spencer
doesn’t really mind that Bridie is making him get out of bed and actually go somewhere
(even if it’s only a different level in the same building) for the first time
in three days. He was going insane lying there all the time, though chatting to
Monica helped. What Spencer does have a problem with is going to see Nina – the
last time he did, he thought she was dead. And he’s still afraid she will die,
and he’s not sure how he’ll feel when he sees her – whether he can handle it.
Of
course, had he asked himself a week ago whether he could handle his
ex-girlfriend taking him hostage in a bank robbery, he would have undoubtedly
thought he would have a mental breakdown if that unlikely situation came to
pass. But as yet it doesn’t seem as if he’s entirely lost his marbles, so
perhaps he’s tougher than he gives himself credit for. Or everyone is capable
of adapting and dealing with whatever situation they’re in.
Spencer
thinks of untranslatable words to distract himself. Like mamihlapinatapei from Yagan, an indigenous language of the Tierra
del Fuego region of South America. A wordless yet meaningful look shared by two
people who both desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start.
And Spencer thinks of how useless all these words are, all this random
knowledge is – they won’t help him do well at school, or impress anyone. The only
thing he can do is distract himself – from his family falling apart. From Nina.
Spencer’s
father returns to the room, a mobile phone to his ear. He smiles vaguely at
Bridie and presses the phone into Spence’s hand. Spence mouths ‘who is it?’ but
his father is already looking away, staring absently out the window at nothing,
hands twisted together, eyes sad.
Spencer
puts the phone to his ear. ‘Hello?’
‘Spence.
Oh, Spence.’ Her voice sounds quiet and far away. It takes a moment for him to
recognise her voice – the fact that it didn’t occur to him that she’d be
calling is sad, how he’d given up on her – but he remembers that she is and
will always be his mother. And he and his father were taken hostage in a bank
robbery, and he was shot in the leg. Of course. Of course she’d call. ‘I’m
sorry.’
‘Mum,’
he says. He remembers his anger, his numbness, in the months after she left –
yelling at his dad. But he has no anger now. Maybe he’s moved beyond it, maybe
it’ll hit him later. Right now, he’s just grateful to hear his mother’s voice.
‘I’m
coming home,’ she says, her voice a whisper. ‘I’m coming home.’
Bridie takes
Spencer upstairs, to the level Nina's on. She grins at the nurse in the lift.
'I don't know how
you can be so cheerful,' says Spencer, when the nurse steps out.
She shrugs. 'It's
how I deal with things. Plus, hospitals are not generally the most joyous of
places, especially not this level. I'm doing my best to lift everyone's
spirits.' She adds, with humour, 'It's really quite selfless.'
Spence laughs.
'You're so humble.'
They make their
way down the corridor in silence, the rhythmic sound of Bridie's heels clacking
against the linoleum soothing rather than irritating. The world is still fuzzy
at the edges from pain medication, but Spencer still feels a sharp pain through
his knee. Getting up and into a wheelchair to be careered around the hospital
by Bridie was perhaps not the best of ideas.
'Here she is,'
says Bridie, slowing. There's a door, like all the others along this corridor,
with a window in it, a curtain pulled across.
'Hang on, wait,'
says Spencer. Bridie stops outside the door. Is he prepared to see her, still
and bandaged and connected to machines? Is she even herself like that? 'What do
I say to her?'
Bridie turns to
face him. 'Are you serious? I get that you were too awkward to speak to her
when she was conscious, but really, Spencer, you are far too shy - the girl's
not even awake...'
'I don't
regularly converse with coma patients.'
'Pretend it's a
Spanish soap opera. Profess your undying love. I don't know. I told her what a
legend she is at school. And about the news. And I updated her on the end of
the whole bassist affair.'
'I'm surprised
your crazy hijinks didn't rouse her from her slumber.'
'Ha,' says Bridie.
She pauses, thinks for a moment. 'You realise what a good opportunity this is,
right? You can say what you really feel for once in your life. It's not like
she'll think you're being awkward. Be as honest as you like, and she won't
remember a thing when she wakes up–'
'When?'
'As the
unendingly wise George Michael said,' Bridie says, 'You gotta have faith.'
'Maybe we ought
to just play her some bad 80s pop.'
'We can't stand
here forever,' she says. 'You go in and see her, declare your love and share
with her some random did-you-knows and bitch shamelessly about me and my
shamelessness, and I'll procure a boom box and some Wham CDs, hey? I bet she'll
be sitting up and laughing before you can say wake me up before you go go.'
She grins.
'Sounds like a
plan,' he says, smiling. 'I'm ready.'
I’m
incredibly fortunate to have family and friends who’ve been supportive of my
writing ambitions from the beginning, who’ve helped me to bounce back from
rejections, and encouraged me to persist even when things seemed impossible.
Whenever I flagged, they gave me the strength to keep dreaming, and keep
working, and last week, I held a copy of my debut novel The Other Tree in my hands for the first time.
