In Jeopardy Read Online Free PDF

swirling energy loses its force and gives way to a tunnel of blinding light that strikes the water’s surface. She spews up oily water. Salt burns the back of her throat and mouth as she coughs it up. She has been retrieved from the ocean, rudely pulled from a place of peace.
    She treads water at the foot of a great cross of light. A faded figure in front of the cross blows music from a trumpet, removes the instrument from its mouth and points to where the bridge meets the land. A path lights the way to the water’s edge. ‘Go back Christine.’
    The figure vanishes.
Did I, along with my hopelessness, fall into a watery grave before being hauled out by something mysterious?
    On dry land she finds her coat and shoes. She strips off drenched clothes, shivers, her teeth chatter and water clings to her skin like sticky tendrils. She wraps the coat around her body, the only dry clothing she has, and slips her feet into the shoes she left on the sand.
    She returns to the train station and baggage department. The attendant who checked in her bags is still on duty. His eyes widen when he sees her. He is speechless and unable to break his stare for some moments.
    ‘I’m Christine Francis and I’ve come to collect my baggage. Where’s the bathroom?’
    She thanks the attendant and freshens up before she waits for the morning train and the long haul to Melbourne. The journey is a blur. She gazes out of the window; the geographical features of the landscape become nebulous and indistinguishable. She thinks she is not unlike patients drugged up on painkillers, beyond despair, clinging to a life they seem to have lost control of; vaguely aware of what unfolds around them.
    As if immersed in a fog, the crowds at Spencer Street station appear indistinguishable. Christine collects her things.
    She is disoriented from the train bounding along the track. Her head spins from seemingly eternal swaying carriages.
    Back in Melbourne, she is alone, lost and with no one to turn to for help. Then, without knowing why, anger stirs in her. She punches one hand into the other, at Richard and his careless neglect and abandonment of her. She had become accustomed to the beginnings and endings of Richard’s romantic dalliances. She fears this one has her hooks into him, has staked her claim on him and isn’t going to give him up.
What am I to do this time?
    She has no defence to deflect the volley of shots that Richard and his lover will no doubt fire at her. In Sydney both of them had shown her a nasty hand.
    Her parents were the glue holding her family together until they died instantly when crossing a city street. They were struck down by a drunken driver who failed to stop at the red light. Christine’s brother and sister are eight years older than her. Both of them left home when she started secondary school and returned to Christmas and other celebrations when these coincided with some other reason to return to Melbourne.
    Diana lives in Perth and they keep in contact by phone and mail. She hasn’t met Richard. Diana didn’t attend their wedding; she offered an elaborate excuse then wished Christine well. She was shocked by her sister’s decision.
    Diana continues to send cards for birthdays and Christmas. She has two children, Natasha and Lawrence. Since they started school Diana sends pictures and videos of school performances, Natasha’s ballet concerts and Lawrence playing soccer. She writes to Christine inviting her to stay with them in Perth, assuring her they have a large house. Diana vows she has no intention of returning to Melbourne following their parents’ deaths.
    Julian has lived in London for the past twenty years, works as a foreign correspondent and lives in the apartment he owns in Chelsea.
    Before Christine met Richard she visited London and stayed with her brother. He showed her some of his favourite haunts and treated her to meals in classy places. Some of these events were interrupted when he rushed away to attend a