Mercy Street

by Tess Evans

  With these thoughts, he drives the short distance back to the motel, where Rory lies on her bed and is asleep before he can find the cartoon channel.

  George wakes in the fuzz of afternoon sleep as Richie, who they had smuggled in, whimpers and nudges at his hand.

  ‘What is it, boy?’

  The dog pads over and puts his head on Rory’s bed.

  What’s that noise? George is suddenly wide awake. ‘Rory. Your puffer. Where’s your puffer?’

  ‘Under my pillow.’ She scrabbles for the puffer, holds it to her mouth and takes a breath. ‘I used it before. It isn’t working very well.’

  ‘It sure isn’t.’ This is the worst I’ve seen her. She’s fighting for breath and George struggles to conceal his anxiety. He pours some cough elixir into a teaspoon, which he offers to the sick child.

  She tosses her head and pushes the spoon away. ‘Stop. I hate that stuff. Mummy doesn’t make me take that stuff.’

  Mummy? She hadn’t mentioned her mother in months. Now a second time in a couple of days. ‘Just one teaspoon, sweetheart. Just until your chest clears.’ He feels his own chest tightening and turns away to use his own puffer. Please. I can’t afford to be sick, too. I have to look after Rory. He’s lucky. Whoever he’s addressing gives him a reprieve and his airways begin to relax. ‘I’ll get the nebuliser.’

  He runs out to the car and brings in the equipment, blessing Bree for the thoroughness of her packing. He sets it up with shaking hands, and is relieved when Rory gives up her opposition and lies holding the mask to her face. Her eyes are still a little wild. Tears slide off her cheeks and onto the pillow as her narrow chest strains and labours. George holds her hand. ‘It’s okay, love. The medicine will kick in soon and you’ll be as right as rain, won’t she Richie?’

  The dog woofs quietly and licks her other hand. Rory manages a small smile as George strokes her head. ‘Any better?’

  She nods. ‘A bit – and, Poppy?’

  ‘What, sweetheart?’

  ‘When’s Mummy coming home?’

  ‘Let’s worry about that when you’ve had a nice rest.’ George grips her hand as though she might be taken from him at any minute and stays beside her bed long after she falls into a restless sleep.

  He gnaws at his thumbnail. Angie again. Rory is happy with him – he’s certain of that. So why ask for her mother now? Surely he’s enough. She is surrounded by a geography of love that reaches well beyond the boundaries of blood, beyond, even, the law. All he needs is time – in a year or two her mother will be a wraith, a wisp of memory and he, George, the solid centre of her world. His throat tightens. To be the centre of her world. As she is his.

  He had planned to leave the next day, but rings reception to see if they can stay another night. ‘Just a precaution,’ he says. ‘My grandson’s a bit crook. Odds are he’ll be okay in the morning.’

  ‘No worries, love. Do you need a doctor? Number’s in the folder on the bedside table.’

  ‘No. No, I don’t think it’s that bad. He just needs to take it easy for a bit.’

  But what if she does need a doctor? What if the nebuliser fails to open her airways? It seems to be working at the moment, but . . . The consequences frighten him. A doctor would soon find out that his ‘grandson’ is a girl and then what? He watches the sleeping child. Listens to her breathing. A bit easier, perhaps? She wouldn’t be able to sleep if she really was struggling to breathe.

  It’s a while now since he invoked his dead wife. Don’t tell me to make a list, Pen. I wouldn’t know where to start. All I know is I don’t want to – I can’t – lose her, too. You say what if she’s seriously ill? Maybe there’s a pharmacy in town. I could explain about her asthma and get some stronger medication. I know, Pen. I know what I should do, but she’s had asthma before. And got over it. Fit as a fiddle the next day. That’s what kids are like. Up and down, then up again in a flash. He hates himself but he has to make her understand. I’m sorry, Pen. I know what you’d say, but I’ve had experience bringing up a kid.

  His wife is dead. Unable to hear him, but he knows what her reaction would be and cringes from her hurt and judgement. Sorry, old girl. That was a cruel thing to say. With any luck, it won’t come down to a choice.

  By dinnertime, Rory is somewhat better, though she continues to cough. The receptionist is kind enough to offer to ‘nick down’ to the shops for him when he inquires about room service. ‘So’s you won’t have to leave the kid,’ she says. ‘We don’t have a restaurant here but I can get you some chicken and salad from the supermarket.’

  George is so grateful he feels tears spring to his eyes. You can meet unexpected kindness wherever you go. Pen was always saying that, but it’s only since his time with Rory that he has lived the experience. He needs to talk to Redgum. Or Shirl. Until all this happened, he’s never understood how much he’s relied upon his sister’s sleeves-rolled-up brand of common sense.

  Shirl’s common sense has all but deserted her, and she’s hell-bent on confronting Angie. One way or another, she’ll make that girl tell the truth.

  Bill used to work as a printer with the Herald Sun and has kept some contacts. He hangs up the phone and hesitates. ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’

  Shirl is taken aback. Bill never questions her judgement. ‘I know you don’t like George,’ she retorts. ‘But as his only living relative, it’s all up to me.’ If pressed, she’d be unable to explain what ‘all’ referred to, and thankfully, Bill doesn’t ask. He gives her the address and escapes to the garden.

  It’s really just a question of physics. What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? Shirl and Gran meet head-on at the front door.

  ‘My name is Shirley Adams. I’m George Johnson’s sister.’ Shirl enunciates each word with care. She’s dressed in a nice skirt and blouse. And carries a black leather handbag over her arm. That’s why she’s stunned by the response.

  Gran gives a little yelp and begins to close the door. A furious Shirl sticks out her well-shod foot to wedge it open.

  ‘You’ve got a cheek,’ shrieks Gran. ‘Get out of my doorway. You lot have done enough damage. Where’s Rory? Where’s that evil brother of yours?’

  ‘Evil? Evil, you say? You don’t even know my brother. What about your Angie? What about a mother who deserts her child?’

  Enraged splutters accompany a struggle with the door, and Shirl pulls her foot out just in time. ‘How dare you?’ She swings around to encounter a microphone centimetres from her face.

  ‘Can you tell us who you are and why you’re here harassing these poor people?’

  Face flaming, Shirl pushes her way to the car and drives off, tears of humiliation and anger vying for precedence.

  That night they carve her up into bite-sized pieces. There she is, on Bill’s giant television screen, banging at the door like a madwoman, while the voice-over identifies her as George Johnson’s sister, postulating that it might be as well for the stricken family to take out an intervention order on the whole clan.

  Battered but not beaten, Shirl contacts the independent broadcaster (Angie, it seems, has contracted her appearances to a pay-TV network). Shirl fares better in this more controlled environment and has Angie’s letter with her. ‘She just took off and left Rory with George. He’s taken care of her ever since. We all have, in a way.’

  While the conventional press are avid for detail, social media slaver at the possibilities. The twits tweet, the bloggers blog, and Facebook friends like and dislike in almost equal numbers – all reconstructing the past two years with prejudice, ignorance and innuendo. Twitter feeds, engorged, consume themselves within a couple of days, but Mothers for Rory and Women for Angie take root and brandish slogans and shout at each other across cyberspace and once in the flesh outside Parliament House.

  Shirl, meanwhile, tells George’s story at every opportunity, but after a while, opportunities become fewer and fewer. And because there’s nothing more she can do, she
rages and frets until Bill becomes concerned for her health.

  ‘Take it easy, love. There’s nothing more you can do.’ He puts out his arms and holds her while she sobs into his chest. ‘He’ll come back of his own accord. You’ll see.’

  Redgum, dazed by it all, blames himself for the part he played. The day after the first television broadcast, he goes to the pub as usual.

  ‘That was never your mate on the telly last night?’ One of the old codgers comes out of his corner to peer over his glasses at Redgum. ‘Looked a lot like him.’

  Redgum isn’t going to deny his friendship with George. ‘So what if it was?’

  ‘Good on him, I say. Me missus got the kids when we split up. Women get all the sympathy, whether they deserve it or not.’ He turns to his cronies. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’

  There’s muttered assent from the corner, but the barman, at least fifty years their junior, sees fit to chime in. ‘The point is, he’s not the kid’s father. He could really be a paedophile for all we know . . . No offence,’ he says to Redgum. ‘I’m sure he’s okay, but you can never be sure of anyone.’

  The other patrons, with the exception of the corner-dwellers, side with the barman.

  ‘I’ve come to this pub for nigh-on fifty years,’ Redgum says. ‘If I was even ten years younger I’d take on the lot of you.’ He slams down his beer. ‘I’ll tell you this much for nothing. I’ll never set foot in here again.’

  After this he takes to drinking at home. Sometimes he’s joined by Bree. Misery loves company, his mother used to say.

  Angie sits in her grandmother’s family room and tears at her remaining viable fingernail. Things are turning nasty. Sure, there are a lot of people on her side, but there are others who say she’s a bad mother. They don’t even know her, these people. She knows she’s not too bright. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, her stepfather used to say. And maybe she was a bit slack, leaving like that. But she’s not bad. That’s an awful thing to say about someone. Her nail is bitten down to the quick. It hurts.

  20

  There’s a time in the hours after midnight, before the birds begin their morning chatter, that George always thinks of as the fag-end of the world. A time, he had heard nurses say, when souls slip away from bodies too weak to resist. A time for anxiety, when solutions dance and weave and dissipate like smoke between your outstretched fingers. A time for tossing in tangled sheets, longing for morning when things once again become ordinary.

  Bone-weary and soul-weary, George lies awake in those hours before dawn, and wrestles what is not, after all, an ordinary problem. He stares into the dark and listens to Rory cough. Tenses for the onset of a wheeze. He had gone to bed with a feeling of unease – some instinct (a parental one?) tells him that Rory’s asthma isn’t going away so easily this time. There’s something in her breathing, the nature of her cough . . . She mutters in her sleep and his body is instantly alert. Straining into the darkness, he listens for the signs. She settles eventually, but George is no longer sleepy. It’s as though his eyelids are glued open. He stares at the ceiling, the strip of moonlight that slices through a gap in the blind. Then, more for something to do than from necessity, he gets up, pulls the covers around the little girl’s shoulders and tucks Slipper Dog in more firmly.

  Richie pads up and George lets him out for a pee. The air is hot and still and smells of dust. How do they stand this weather day after day? George whistles softly and the dog returns, growling a warning at some nocturnal creature scurrying about its business.

  ‘Inside, Richie.’ The dog lies down near Rory’s bed while George returns to his. Eyes too grainy to close, he once more stares into the darkness. His mind – it used to be so tidy – is in such disarray that, try as he might, he fails to recapture a single thought or plan or possible solution. Surely just minutes ago ingenious and robust ideas had presented themselves to him.

  He becomes aware that the room is no longer black. A subtle shift in tone reveals dim shapes – not yet recognisable, but a sign that the night is ending. A distant rooster crows just as George collapses headfirst into an exhausted sleep.

  He lurches to a sitting position, dragged into a woozy sort of consciousness by Richie, who is whimpering and pawing at the bed. How long has he been sleeping? He squints at the clock, still only half awake. It isn’t quite six but the sun is up and the birds have set about twittering the business of the day.

  But it’s the sound from the other bed that shocks him into consciousness. While he slept (surely not for long?), Rory has been struggling for breath. A second time, God help him, he has slept through his watch. Pen said that you shouldn’t take a child from a mother who might want it. Are these the consequences of such an action?

  Red-rimmed eyes look back at him from a face with a frightening, bluish pallor. ‘I’m scared, Poppy.’

  ‘Sweetheart.’ The pounding of his own heart fills his chest. (So this is how hearts break.) ‘I’m calling the doctor,’ he tells her, rummaging through the folder and pressing the buttons with clumsy haste. The phone rings and a click signals connection. Please. Not an answering machine: ‘Surgery hours are eight to five weekdays. For out of hours, a doctor is in attendance at the Base Hospital in Muswellbrook. In an emergency, call triple 0.’

  George looks across at Rory. She’s blue around the mouth and her eyes now seem to be all pupil. 0-0-0. He holds her hand as he gives the operator the details, trying to focus. The motel. What’s it called? His head is going to explode. What’s the name of the fucking town? He is about to run outside to check when he remembers the folder. ‘The Kookaburra,’ he tells her. ‘Main Street, Owens Gap.’

  ‘An ambulance is on its way,’ the operator tells him. ‘It should arrive in about twenty minutes. I’ll stay on the line with you while you wait. Keep calm. That’s the most important thing. Talk her through it . . .’

  George does as he’s told. ‘Breathe,’ he says. ‘Slowly. That’s right. Another one. The ambulance will be here soon. Breathe in. Slowly. Easy now. Breathe.’

  Even as he speaks, George marvels at the calm that overlays his panic. It could be the reflected composure of the emergency operator. Or perhaps he has drawn on a personal store of strength that has lain dormant these many years. ‘Easy,’ he says. ‘Breathe. That’s the girl. You’re doing well.’ He mustn’t let her see his fear. ‘Breathe. Easy does it. Breathe.’ With an almost feminine gesture, he smooths her hair back from her forehead and faces the sobering truth. He has taken someone else’s child into his protection only to find, in this place so far from home, that his care is wanting and his love insufficient to protect her.

  Rory is trying to say something. ‘Richie.’ George can barely understand her and has to ask her to repeat what she said.

  The blasted dog. ‘We can’t take Richie in an ambulance, can we? Shh. You mustn’t get upset. Tell you what – we’ll take Slipper Dog and leave Richie with the nice motel lady. She’ll look after him. You just have to get better so you can play with him again. Breathe in, sweetheart. That’s right. Slowly . . .’

  There’s a strange vacuum of silence just before George hears the sound of an approaching siren and the crunch of tyres pulling up on the gravel. He has never experienced such relief. It pours out of him like sweat. Patting Rory’s hand – ‘I’ll only be a minute, love’ – he goes to the door to meet the paramedics, a young man and an older woman. Without greeting them, he steps aside and indicates the child. ‘Asthma. We usually control it with Ventolin.’ He hovers at the foot of the bed, folds and unfolds his arms and finally takes hold of the small, bony foot in what he hopes is a reassuring grasp. They’re connected. The crisis is out of his hands, but after all they’ve been through, he won’t let her go. They must stay connected.

  The woman unpacks their equipment while the young man sits down beside Rory. ‘Hello. My name’s Ben and this is Laura. That’s a nice toy. What’s his name?’

  Rory’s voice is no more than a whisper. ‘Slipper Dog.’


  ‘Great name. You hold on to Slipper Dog there while we make you a bit more comfortable. So what’s your name?’

  Her eyes slide across to George. ‘Roy?’ she says.

  It’s all over. All the running, all the deception. All the sharing and laughing and crying. All the learning and the joy.

  ‘It’s Rory,’ George corrects her with uncharacteristic brusqueness. And moves aside to make room for Laura and her equipment. The paramedics exchange a glance. What does that mean?

  As he lets go of her foot, frightened eyes follow him. Poor little bugger. She’s only a kid. A baby, really. ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m just going to see about Richie. I’ll be back in a tick.’

  The receptionist (‘Call me Chrissie’) is already at the door. ‘Heard the ambulance,’ she says. ‘Is he all right?’

  George stops for a minute. He? She already knows about Richie? Then he remembers. ‘Not too good – maybe a bit better since the ambos came. Look. I know we shouldn’t have, but we sneaked a dog in and . . .’

  ‘A dog?’

  ‘I’m sorry. Could you look after it while we go to the hospital? I wouldn’t ask, only the kid’s worried about it and I’ve got to go with her.’

  Chrissie puts a warm, brown hand on his arm. ‘No worries, love. Lucky the boss is down in Sydney – he’s got a strict no-pet rule.’ She takes Richie’s collar. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Richie.’

  ‘Come on, Richie. We’ll tie you up out the back till I finish my shift.’ She turns to George, who is impatient to get back to Rory. ‘If you’re not back by then, I’ll take him home. Here.’ She scribbles on a supermarket docket retrieved from somewhere about her person. ‘My phone number. Take it. Give us a call when you’re ready for the dog.’ She tugs at the mutinous Richie’s leash and waves George back inside. ‘He’ll be fine. I’m used to dogs.’