by Scot Gardner
I introduced the Bartons and she said she remembered John from somewhere. I told her about the mercy dash he’d done.
‘That’s right!’ she sang. ‘Of course.’
She didn’t remember, but the act was flawless.
‘How are you?’ John asked.
‘Oh, you know, up and down. Down and up.’
John laughed kindly.
‘You’ve come to take me home then?’ Mam asked.
‘I think the doctor wants to keep you in one more night, just to make sure everything is okay,’ I said.
‘Does he now?’ Mam said, suddenly indignant. ‘We’ll see about that!’
She swung her legs to the side of the bed.
I grabbed her knees. ‘You wait here, I’ll go and discuss it with him.’
‘You’re a good boy, David. I’ll wait here then.’
‘David?’ Skye chuckled. ‘Who’s David?’
‘I am,’ I said. ‘Aaron David Rowe.’
Skye looked at her father. ‘You start calling me Rose and I’ll put salt in your sugar bowl.’
‘Can’t have that,’ John said. ‘Better watch my tongue.’
‘Rose is a pretty name,’ Mam said. She reached for Skye’s hand. Skye let her have it but didn’t step any closer to the bed.
A nurse paged Doctor Chandra. Apparently he hadn’t gone home after all, or perhaps he was back in already. He arrived in a coat-flapping jog two minutes later, shook my hand limply and led me by the elbow into a small room with a sink and a fridge.
‘Cup of tea?’
I shook my head, looked him in the eyes.
He straightened his tie.
I brushed mine flat, instinctively.
‘Your mother is in good physical health. I have no reason to doubt she will regain the use of her arm completely.’
There was an unspoken ‘but’ at the end of the sentence and I held his gaze.
‘I think there may be some impairment to her cognitive functioning. Do you understand—’
‘Yes.’
‘All I’m asking is that you approve some non-invasive testing of her perception and memory. It’s a courtesy, really. Mrs Rowe has already expressed her consent.’
‘Mam’s already said yes?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘But she doesn’t know . . .’
It was too late. Of course she’d say yes. She’d say yes to toilet paper if they offered, too. Protesting on the grounds that she didn’t know what she was agreeing to would be admitting the truth – she really didn’t know what she was agreeing to.
Steam hissed in my veins. I wasn’t ready to let it go. I wasn’t ready for them to be poking and prodding Mam. I needed more time. Mam needed more time. She could wake up tomorrow and everything would be the way it used to be.
Doctor Chandra must have felt the steam. He took half a step back.
‘No,’ I said through my teeth. ‘No tests. I told you, I’ll get her assessed myself when she’s back on her feet.’
Both his hands came up. ‘Okay. Fine. I can only offer my recommendations.’
‘Then she’s free to go?’
‘I would like to keep her in for one more night. Without injected pain medication she will be uncomfortable. She’ll sleep better here.’
‘But no tests.’
‘No tests.’
I wondered if I could get some injected pain drugs for myself. Anything to make sleeping easier. Anything to stop the film running night after night in my head. I considered taking Skye up on her offer of period-pain medication and a smile tugged on my lips.
Doctor Chandra leaned in. ‘It is possible for you to sleep here,’ he whispered. ‘To put your mind at ease. Not policy, but possible in certain special situations.’
‘No,’ I said. It came out like a hammer blow. ‘Thank you, but I have things to attend to.’
He inclined his head politely.
‘Thank you,’ I said again, the steam now safely contained.
Skye and John were a little wide-eyed when I returned. John took his car keys from his pocket.
‘One more night of pampering for you, Mam,’ I said.
She slapped her thigh and grinned. ‘Where did you put the TV remote, Aaron?’
I was about to protest until I spotted it on her bedside table. I pointed instead, kissed her grey curls and left her to poke buttons.
Skye held her father’s hand as we threaded our way through the maze of corridors. I walked beside her and when I paused to take stock of the signs overhead, she grabbed my fingers with her free hand and tugged me into motion.
‘This way, Robot,’ she said. ‘Car park.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘I knew that. I was just computing the possibilities.’
She chuckled but didn’t let go.
Mrs Barton’s soup was more of a stew, and for some reason the smell reminded me of candlewax. I had to force the last ten spoonfuls down out of respect for the feelings of the chef, but I got there in the end. Even managed to politely refuse a second helping.
I cleared the plates and Mrs Barton berated me for attempting to wash the dishes in her own house.
‘Don’t do the dishes if you don’t have to,’ Skye said. ‘That’s just stupid. Besides, you have to help me with my homework, remember?’
‘You’re incredible,’ John laughed.
I sat with Skye and she opened her book but didn’t look at the page. She looked at me, eyes brimming with curiosity.
‘How come she’s so old?’ she whispered.
‘Homework,’ I chided.
‘She’s older than my grandma. She’s old enough to be your grandma.’
I tapped the page and she picked up a pencil.
‘What is your dream about?’
‘Nothing,’ I snarled. ‘Concentrate.’
‘I am concentrating. What’s it about?’
‘Skye, stop it.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘I’m not sharing my dreams with you.’
‘What’s it about?’
I faked a yawn. ‘Goodness, is that the right time?’
She grabbed my sleeve. ‘No, sorry. Don’t go.’
I stared at her fingers and she smoothed and patted my shirt. She read maths questions aloud in her best robot voice, pecked at the problems and eventually finished the page.
‘We’re done?’ I asked.
‘No! There’s English. I need help with . . . I need help with a story. Tell me one.’
‘You make one up.’
‘Okay, you give me ideas and I’ll make one up.’
‘I’m supposed to be helping, not doing it for you.’
She tapped the pencil on her chin and stared at the ceiling.
‘There was this boy, right,’ she began. ‘He was born in another country. Maybe America. Yes, America. But his mum and dad didn’t want him any more so they sent him to live with this old witch in another country. She gave him drugs and turned him into a robot, then the boy . . .’
‘Enough!’ I cried. I stood up, knocking Skye’s books to the floor.
She shrank, her eyes wide. ‘Sorry.’
‘Enough.’
John appeared at my side. ‘How about I run you home, Aaron? It’s been a big week. Nice lazy weekend will do you wonders.’
I collected my jacket as he ushered me to the door. I didn’t say goodbye.
22
‘SORRY,’ JOHN SAID, as he pulled up in front of the caravan park. ‘Skye can be a handful at times.’
I’d made some sort of recovery from the shock of having a cartoon of my life story plucked from my head. ‘It wasn’t her, it was me.’
I thanked him for the lift and closed the door as quietly as I could.
I’d given her snippets of my world and she’d done no more than paste them together. I’d underestimated her powers of perception. I wouldn’t be doing that again.
I found the sliding door of the annex open. I remembered the morning’s fracas and thought
I might have left it that way, but Mam’s chair had been overturned and my mattress was on the floor. I didn’t remember that.
Movement in the van caught my eye and stalled my pulse.
Curtain in the breeze.
Westy had definitely been back. The contents of every cupboard, every drawer, every shelf in the van had been methodically emptied onto the floor. Dried herbs mixed with broken eggshell on a bundle of Mam’s undershirts. The fridge door had been propped open by an upturned milk carton. A charred mess on the stove turned out to be a pair of my boxers.
I cleaned. I started at one end and scooped and washed and scrubbed and wiped until the bins were full and the entire place sparkled. No hint of burnt beetroot or underwear, just the fake pine of surface spray.
I threw myself – fully clothed, sans shoes – into the crushing cold of the ocean. I panted at the surface and ducked under the feeble waves. My lip stung but I convinced myself that it was a pain of healing, that – like the cold needling the rest of my body – it was a rite of purification.
I slept in Mam’s bed the way I’d done when I was little. I locked the annex and the door of the van and hid the keys in the grill. I tied one end of my JKB tie to my wrist and the other to the bedside lamp, which was screwed to the wall. I breathed and turned and waited for sleep as if I was waiting for a punch.
23
The pink sheet doesn’t rise or fall. It almost covers the head. A curl of dark hair lies flat on the pillow. I see parted lips and they are full and womanly, slack with sleep or death. A nostril haloed in blood.
I woke as if I’d come up from beneath the earth, puffing and shaking and gulping for air. It was still dark. I’d slept three, perhaps four, hours. My tie had cut the blood flow to my fingers and my hand had turned a deathly blue. I tore at the knot, managed to reef the light fitting from the wall and made my wrist bleed with the chicken scissors cutting myself free.
My tie was ruined.
The keys were gone.
The door of the van opened when I tried it. The sliding door was off its runner. The keys were in the lock.
*
I punched the tiled wall of the shower, trying to restore feeling to my fat fingers and banish the desire to kill something. Anything. I punched until my knuckles bled and the exasperation flowed from my eyes as mute, salty tears.
Any trap my conscious mind set, my subconscious could avoid. I don’t know why that surprised me – we were the same person. Weren’t we? Zombie, Westy had said. A zombie aware enough to untie and retie knots, search out keys, uproot doors and have less than a blink of memory of the proceedings.
I stopped punching the wall when the shower chilled in response to a toilet being flushed. I turned the hot tap off completely and wore the full icy blast of spray on my upturned face.
I shivered as I dried myself, my limbs leaden and stunned by the cold. I felt tired to the marrow, the lack of sleep and the relentless imagery of my dream gradually swallowing the last of my defences. Amanda Creen’s moving toe, my panic attack in the chapel and my reaction to Skye’s clairvoyant storytelling were products of my sleep-starved and addled brain. The less I slept, the less I could sleep and the more fragile my mental state became.
A lazy weekend, John had prescribed. The thought of being still long enough for the dark thoughts to sink their teeth in kept me moving. I washed and dried my work clothes and ironed everything with a seam. When the sun was properly up, I jogged along the foreshore all the way to the hospital. Right through to room 206.
Tucked-in sheets wrapped the bed where Mam had been the night before. Like an actor in a comic play, I looked under the bed and in the cupboard before I realized what I was doing.
‘Mam?’
Movement in the corridor.
‘Mam?’
A nurse entered. ‘Mr Rowe?’
‘Yes.’
She squared her shoulders, rested a hand on my elbow. ‘Your mum’s been taken up to the Herriot Wing. If you’d like to come with me, I’ll show you the way.’
She dragged me by the elbow, more than practical urgency in her stride.
‘What’s the Herriot Wing? Why has she been moved?’
‘Herriot is the critical care unit. I’ll let Doctor explain the full details of why she was moved.’
‘Critical care? What happened? She had a broken arm!’
‘She’s okay, Mr Rowe. Honestly. They transferred her up there to keep a better eye on her, that’s all.’
I propped. It broke the nurse’s grip.
‘No,’ I growled. ‘Tell me the truth.’
She flushed. ‘See for yourself,’ she said, beckoning.
It became a monumental effort to move, one step at a time, through the fire doors marked Herriot Wing. The nurse led me on to a dimly lit room where Mam slept – a picture of tranquillity. I breathed again.
‘She’s fine,’ the nurse said again, her hand on my arm. ‘Doctor will be with you shortly. Have a seat if you like.’
She left and I chose to stand. I took Mam’s hand, limp and warm, and held it to my cheek. She didn’t stir and I knew she’d been medicated. Even at her most deranged, she slept like a bird – woken by the slightest sound or movement.
She was usually awake when I woke, as if her consciousness preceded my own. In my childhood, when nightmares woke me, she’d be speaking words of comfort before I fully realized I’d been dreaming. At Easter and Christmas, with the expectation like caffeine in my veins, she’d be wishing me good morning before I’d rubbed the sleep from my eyes. This fake torpor was the closest I’d seen her to death.
‘Mr Rowe?’
I dropped her hand. ‘Yes?’
It was a different doctor, taller and younger with a pair of livid scratches on his right cheek. He shook my fingers and said his name – a swatch of syllables I couldn’t keep hold of.
‘Mrs Rowe is sleeping. We have given her a sedative.’
I nodded.
‘She woke during the night,’ he said. He touched the wounds on his cheek. ‘She was confused and distressed. We transferred her to critical care so that she could be watched on a more regular basis.’
‘Can I take her home now?’
‘I would advise against that at the moment. In her current state —’
‘She’s confused and distressed because she’s here,’ I said.
‘Probably true,’ the doctor said. ‘We had to reset her arm after her outburst.’
‘I could bring her back in if . . .’
‘That would be an ideal situation once her arm has had a chance to stabilise. Perhaps a couple of weeks.’
I felt the injustice in my guts. It swam around and pulled the muscles of my face. He didn’t realize what he was saying. He was saying ‘You’ll have to balance your tottery world without this strut’; ‘You’ll have to face up to things without this protective blanket’; ‘Live life naked.’
I wasn’t ready for that. At that moment I felt I never would be. I could see it was irrational and pathetic. I could see it would change little about my day-to-day life; in fact, it would make certain aspects of my life easier if Mam was safe in hospital, but she was my lifeline – my conduit, through which the world made a strange sort of sense. Where would I hide?
‘If you need somebody to talk to, I can . . .’
I wiped the expression off my face and tucked it back in its box. I reined in my breathing. ‘I’m fine,’ I said
It was what he wanted to hear, even if it wasn’t the truth. He offered a curt nod and left the room.
I kissed Mam’s forehead and fled.
24
I want to move but I no longer want to run. I want to pull the sheet away. I want to see the face. I want to know the texture of the fabric, feel its bloody weight and be steeped in its terror. I must move or this moment will eat me alive. I close my eyes and I know that someone is watching me. I feel it on the back of my neck. I turn my head.
I leapt awake as if my heart had been jump-started with
a defibrillator. A noise made it through my lips, more squirrel-squeak than human. A green shadow recoiled from in front of me and retreated to the door of the annex before I’d rubbed my eyes awake. Somebody had been watching me.
Saturday afternoon. I’d fallen asleep in Mam’s armchair studying my guide to the learner’s permit, even though I told myself I wouldn’t shouldn’t couldn’t slumber. I’d woken exactly where I’d fallen asleep for the first time in a long while, the book still on my lap. The television spoke too fast and too loud. The silhouette of a child hung in the doorway.
Skye Barton. She smiled, flicked a wave. ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.’
I killed the TV. ‘No, you didn’t. I just . . . I was dreaming.’
She stepped forward. ‘Was it the same dream?’
I nodded before I could check myself, rubbed my temples.
‘Tell me. What’s it about?’
‘How did you find me?’
She shrugged. ‘I was at Steevie’s place. Just kept looking. Steevie went home.’
I stood.
She backed outside into the light.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. I got bored. Dad was supposed to come and get me an hour ago but he phoned to say he had to do a pick-up.’
‘So you thought you’d come and watch me while I slept? Is that it?’
Her cheeks coloured. ‘I wanted to say sorry.’
‘For what?’
‘For last night.’
‘Apology accepted,’ I said. ‘I should be saying sorry to you. I reacted badly.’
She took a step closer. ‘So, what is the dream about?’
‘Is that really any of your business?’
‘No. But that’s not going to stop me from asking, is it? I’m a kid. I’m supposed to be blunt.’
I gave a joyless snort.
She smiled in victory.
I sat on the step into the van, waved her to Mam’s seat. She wriggled into place, then stared at me, expectant.
It’s difficult to say why I spoke to her. It was probably a mix of things – her age, her curiosity, her persistence, her honesty, her familiarity with death. I found myself speaking with ease, painting that one scene again and again until every detail lay bare. Maybe it was Skye; maybe it was me. Maybe I was going mad. Maybe I was already mad, and talking to Skye was one way of admitting it to myself.