Thyla. Part 1

Thyla.

by Kate Gordon.

For my mum, who is my real-life Connolly. For my dad, who wrote the first story about a tiger called Tessa.

For Dad's Leigh, for painting the picture that inspired the story. For Tasmania, for its rich history.

And for my Leigh, for everything.

My name is Tessa.

It was the one thing I knew for certain, the one word that stood lonely in my head when the lights were turned on.

The lights were so bright they were like darkness. My eyes watered. It felt as though they were bleeding.

I opened my mouth, and what I wanted to be a scream came out as a whimper. It sounded foreign and I felt myself thinking, I don't whimper. I don't whimper.

And so that was the second thing I knew.

Beyond that, there was nothingness.

Hot tears tumbled down my face and I wanted to push them back in.

I don't cry, either.

I was warm. Too warm. I could feel something bearing down on me at once soft and horribly heavy and another word joined Tessa Tessa in my mind, as if the words were small creatures meeting together. in my mind, as if the words were small creatures meeting together.

Blankets.

And then, I don't like blankets. I don't like blankets.

And so now I knew four things.

But the rest was deafening emptiness.

I didn't know where I was.

I didn't know how I got there.

I didn't know who who I was, beyond my name, and that I didn't like blankets. I was, beyond my name, and that I didn't like blankets.

I didn't know who the other people in the room were. They hadn't spoken yet, but I knew they were there. I could smell them. I could hear their shallow breathing. I could feel their fear.

Somehow this comforted me.

They are scared too, I thought. I fought through the pain, and I opened my eyes wide again and sat up.

'Who am I?' I asked.

And the woman screamed.

We laugh about it now, Connolly.

How you were afraid of me at first, when now we are closer than many real mothers and daughters. You ask if I can blame you.

I can't.

When you showed me a mirror that first day, I screamed too. You think that's funny now, also.

I did look a fright.

My hair now cropped short like a boy's was long and clumped into pudgy, misshapen sausages.

My face was so thick with dirt you could not tell the colour of my skin.

My eyes were red and bloodshot, and my lips were cracked and torn. My body was one big bruise.

I was a monster.

I don't blame Vinnie for instructing you gruffly, 'Wash her. Make her look human.'

Vinnie is your overseer. He has a deep, growling voice and a face that forever looks vexed. His cologne is always too strong it smells of spice and whiskey. His hair is greying about the temples, but aside from this he looks younger than you would expect in someone of such rank. He is thickset and strong-jawed and he has eyes of the most intriguing colour a sort of amber, with golden flecks. And, though I know it must sound odd, I felt I knew those eyes. But my brain was befuddled. If Vinnie knew me, he would tell me.

My memories of those first days with you and Vinnie are blurred and smudged. They seem to me like paintings with the paint still wet. I feel I can push my fingers into them and mix the colours up, or wipe them away completely.

You helped me to make things more solid, Connolly.

'These things take time, Tessa,' you said, when I asked you why Vinnie's search for my parents, for my history, for anything anything about me was uncovering nothing. 'Vinnie is a really great policeman. He'll find something. Until then, well, you've got me!' about me was uncovering nothing. 'Vinnie is a really great policeman. He'll find something. Until then, well, you've got me!'

I appreciated I still still appreciate how you strove to make me feel safe. You were a police officer, not a governess. You did not know me, really. You didn't appreciate how you strove to make me feel safe. You were a police officer, not a governess. You did not know me, really. You didn't have have to visit me in hospital, spend time with me; comfort me. to visit me in hospital, spend time with me; comfort me.

You asked me, on perhaps the third or fourth day, if I had any sense of who I was as a person; whether I was a kind person. I think you were trying to make me feel better, weren't you? You were trying to make me say that I felt I was good and virtuous.

But the thing is, Connolly, that's not how I felt at all. I felt I had tried tried to be good. I felt like I had tried to right wrongs. But I felt like I had failed. What wrongs they were, and how I failed, I couldn't remember. to be good. I felt like I had tried to right wrongs. But I felt like I had failed. What wrongs they were, and how I failed, I couldn't remember.

'I feel as if I need a purpose,' I said. 'A purpose outside of myself. Something to take my mind off ...'

Off what?

I couldn't remember. remember.

This is what I do do remember: remember: The hunger. No matter how much you fed me, it wasn't enough. I could have eaten ten more plates at every meal.

'Gawd, Tess. Where do you put it all?' you said, laughing, as I gobbled up the meal of pancakes and syrup you brought me from a place you called 'Maccas'. You'd had to smuggle it past the nursing staff, who seemed to believe very highly in the benefits of fruit, jelly and pasty white bread that didn't taste like bread at all. 'I'd turn into a complete larda.r.s.e if I ate like you do.'

'Larda.r.s.e?' I asked, through a mouthful of pancake, so it came out more like 'lar-ar?'.

'Fat,' you said. You were used, by now, to me not understanding some of your words.

The thought of getting fat scared me a little bit. I didn't want to be fat. I suspected that it would make me slow. It would make me weak. weak. I didn't want to be weak. I didn't want to be weak.

I left half of my last pancake on my plate. Then I stared at it for a while. Then I gobbled it up.

Vinnie came to visit me too, but he did not bring pancakes. Instead, he brought his gruff voice and his glare and his coffee-stained suit.

And questions. He brought with him so many questions.

'I've had no luck locating your parents,' he said, never looking up from the clipboard he held on his knee. 'It's pretty hard when you don't have a name. You really can't remember any name? First or last? Of anyone?'

I shook my head. Vinnie sighed. 'I've been talking to Social Services about your case,' he said, and I was too afraid to ask what 'Social Services' was. It sounded like a company that might be responsible for b.a.l.l.s and dancing.

I hoped not. I didn't believe I would be a very good dancer.

While I thought, horrified, of waltzes and quadrilles (and where those names came from, no, I did not know), Vinnie spoke some more. Words drifted into my ears and even though I knew their meaning, my head felt fuzzy the words seemed formless. I was too distracted and fearful to make sense of them. 'Guardian', 'school', 'place to live'. I hoped I could ask you, later, to explain.

As Vinnie left without ever once having looked me in the face (I wondered if this was some strange, nervous habit. But Vinnie didn't seem seem nervous), he turned and said, 'So you really don't remember nervous), he turned and said, 'So you really don't remember anything. anything. Nothing at all?' Nothing at all?'

'No,' I whispered. 'Nothing at all.'

The doctors confirmed I had lost my memory, due probably to a head injury when I fell in the bushland, though any outward signs of this injury had disappeared. They presented this fact to me as though it were a revelation.

'Perhaps I should be a doctor,' I whispered to you. 'I made the diagnosis far more quickly than they did.'

You growled at me for being 'cheeky'. But as you said it you swallowed a smile.

The doctors commented on the fast healing of my injuries. They said they had hardly needed to treat me after that first day. They only kept me in hospital because of my lost memory.

And because of the scars.

The doctors did not yet have a diagnosis for them the markings on my back. The long, thin, striping slashes. They asked me if I remembered how or when they appeared. I just stared at them. Did they really expect me to say it again?

'I. Don't. Remember,' I said finally, through gritted teeth.

When you and Vinnie weren't there, and the doctors were away attending other patients, the days were composed of long stretches of dull, interminable nothing. I hated being confined to the bed. I hated being in the stark white room with its unnatural smells. I hated the 'television' you were so excited to see. I did not know how to make it work, and I was glad glad. When you turned it on, it seemed like witchcraft and at first I was slightly afraid of it. 'It's like moving camera obscura,' I whispered to you, and your brow furrowed for a moment.

'How can you have never seen a TV?' you asked. Then, when you saw I was becoming more and more distressed by the tiny people cavorting in the small black box, you said, 'It's nothing to be scared of, Tess. You're right. It's just moving photographs. It's pretty boring, actually.'

Soon, once the fear and then the novelty subsided, I found I agreed with you. The 'programmes' were boring, the 'presenters' insufferable, and as for the 'actors', well, they didn't even look like real human beings! Their faces were tight and s.h.i.+ny and barely moved. And many of them were an unnatural orange hue that disturbed me. They looked like they had been rubbing themselves with marmalade. I was glad you didn't pressure me to use the television. Instead, you brought me books, which I liked, but even these I tired of. I longed to be up up and and out. out.

The other thing I remember from these hospital days is constant, unrelenting fear. Fear of the not-knowing, certainly, but also, strangely, fear of the knowing knowing. I had nightmares awful, shadowy nightmares of darkness and screaming and blood. There was little detail, just shadows and slashes of red, and yet the dreams terrified me. Whenever I closed my eyes these dark dreams came to me. They seemed like memories and I thought, If these are memories, perhaps I do not want to remember. If these are memories, perhaps I do not want to remember. I did not tell you about these nightmares. I didn't want to worry you. I did not tell you about these nightmares. I didn't want to worry you.

I did tell you, however, that there was a part of me that was fearful of finding out my past.

'I think you know the most important thing,' you said to me, holding a freckled hand against my cheek. 'You know you like to help people. You know you need a purpose. You know you are giving. Remember the little boy?'

I did remember him. It had happened only the day before. A young boy perhaps only three years old had wandered, lost and alone, into my hospital room.

'h.e.l.lo,' I said. 'Who are you, then, young man?'

'Jordan,' he replied in a whisper. 'Jordan John Possum.'

'And where are your parents?' I asked.

'I don't know,' Jordan said, his chin wobbling.

'Me neither,' I said, pus.h.i.+ng myself up from the bed. It still hurt to do so, but I knew it was no time to be a coward. The boy needed me. 'All right, Jordan. Let us find them,' I said.

You discovered me walking around the hospital holding Jordan's hand in mine, knocking on doors and asking for a Mr and Mrs Possum.

We found Jordan's parents the Hopes, not the Possums in the reception area, asking frantically for help to find their son.

'Possum!' Jordan's mother cried. 'Where have you been?'

'I've been with Tessa,' he said. 'It's okay. She made me safe.'

The woman looked up at me with her grey-blue eyes. I could tell she thought that I the wild, unkempt creature that I was did not seem the type to worry about the safety of a child. Still, she nodded. 'Thank you,' she said, and then held out her hand. 'I'm Chloe,' she said. 'This is Daniel. Thank you, Tessa, for what you did.'

'I needed needed him to be safe,' I told you later. 'Like you make me safe.' him to be safe,' I told you later. 'Like you make me safe.'

'I'll always make sure you're safe, Tessa,' you said, your voice very serious. 'No matter what happens, we will be friends. I'll always be there for you.'

I didn't ask you why you visited me so much more often than Vinnie did. I didn't ask why you stroked my hair as the doctors examined me or why you held my hand while they poked and prodded and jabbed at me. I didn't ask why you spent hours consoling me after the nurse cut off my hair (and consoling them them over the bite I gave them while they were doing so). over the bite I gave them while they were doing so).

I worried that, if I asked you why you were doing it, you might not be able to think up a good enough reason.

And you might leave me.

And I wanted so badly to stay with you. I felt safe with you. When I was with you, the nightmares were held at bay and the bad memories could not touch me. I felt like I was in the light.

It was like having a mother. You stroked my newly stubbled hair. You even read to me when I was too tired to lift the book. You read me White Fang. White Fang. I liked the wolves. I hated the men. I liked the wolves. I hated the men.

You visited after work and sometimes in your lunch break, because the police station was not far away.

And then you brought me my notebook.

'It's for writing down your memories when they come back,' you said. 'It's to help you piece together the puzzle. You can write in it every night or whenever you have a quiet moment. You can write down everything.'