Devil's Choice

by Graham Wilson

  As she spoke these words she saw the woman flinch as something like fear now sat alongside the anger and hatred in this woman’s eyes.

  Second Meeting

  The following day Catherine was shown into the reception of the Long Bay Prison Hospital. She had already rung through yesterday afternoon, after her meeting with Marilyn, to arrange the visit.

  She had been told that Dan XXXX was an extremely difficult and dangerous prisoner who often had to be forcibly restrained and she was likely to find this meeting difficult and confronting, she could sense that they really would prefer that this visit never occurred.

  But for her there was no choice, it may be awful but she must see it through. Perhaps kindness and charm would work were threats failed.

  But nevertheless as she walked through the gates from the outside into the prison complex and surveyed the high walls with their razor wire topping, she felt as if she was descending into a version of hell, none of the nice house as a veneer for monstrous person that she had been struck by yesterday. Here evil was in the air both within and without.

  At first it was almost a relief, after entering the forbidden jail grounds, to step through the hospital doors where cleanliness, orderlies in white and brightly lit spaces seemed less bleak. Yet the cheerless sterility of the outside, an absence of any smiling faces or semblance of ordinary life, permeated this place as well. But as well there was a sense of business like efficiency and people hardened against ordinary emotions which pervaded this place and despite the light filled clean surfaces, it was almost worse than the external barren walls and lifeless squalor.

  She tried to block this from her mind as she was taken down the long corridor from the reception to the meeting place. She came into a room where a man in colourless track pants and a white long sleeve polo shirt sat. At first he looked relatively innocuous, like any other patient, and somehow cowed and pathetic. But, as he looked up at her, pure malice gleamed in eyes that seemed both knowing and mad. There was an evil shining from this person which was more terrifying than anything which came from Martin’s wife. She gained an instant insight into the way her mother had felt that day when he had come to visit her in her restaurant in Broome and understood, in a way she never had before, how her mother had just fled without thought to escape this awfulness.

  All her thoughts of pleading with this man for help drained out of the plug holes of her mind. Yet she must, even so.

  She dropped her gaze as she took a deep breath and collected her thoughts. He began speaking before she could form her own words. Who are you and what do you want.

  Then he peered more intently. “I know you; you are someone I have met before. I met you as a small girl all those years ago at the school in Broome. You told me the way to your mother’s house, how old were you then, maybe six, cute as a button and so trusting.

  “It was a big help just to follow your directions and not to have to ask further. It was such a pleasure to see the look of unexpected pleasure on your mother’s face when she saw me, after you told me the way.”.

  Catherine had forgotten her own role in trusting this man, as a six year old child and giving her the directions to her own house and to find her mother. It was something she must have buried in a cave in her mind and now it came flooding back, along with their panicked flight far out into the desert to escape him.

  She felt an amazement that he could recognize her as the adult from last seeing her as a small child. But there was something calculated and clever in his madness, an ability to see with different eyes which found only the details they sought out.

  She decided to pick up where that conversation had left off all those years ago, hoping his mind was still living in that place as an escape from now. “Yes I remembered you and how I helped you. Now I am asking you to help me in return. My own little girl who is even younger than I was on that day needs your help. She needs to find my father and wanted to know if it is you.

  The man made an obscene cackle, like a feigned amusement Well, isn’t she a sweet little thing to ask for help through you, she really should have come to ask me herself, I don’t answer requests unless they come from the person who is making them. Though I suppose I could make an exception for you, seeing as you once were a sweet little girl too. But there would be a price, everything comes with a price, even helping cute little girls, in fact especially helping cute little girls. So tell your little girl to come and see me and ask me herself, perhaps to give me a kiss on the cheek when she asks ever so nicely then I will think about it. That is what all nice little girls should do. I like little girls, I have held and played with a lot of little girls, even touched them in their private parts when their Mummies and Daddies weren’t looking. Yes I am happy to hold and cuddle your little girl that way too if she asks nicely enough.

  At that moment Catherine could not bear this awful man any more, there was something so uncompromising in his vile madness. She could not bear for him to have been her father, or her daughter’s grandfather. She really could not bear to allow herself to touch any part of him or have him touch any part of her or Amelie. She knew, no matter how desperate, she had made a dreadful mistake coming to see him.

  She could always seek a court order to have a sample forcibly taken from him to test whether he was her parent. But she could not bear the thought of finding out if it was indeed so, she understood her mother’s desire that it be anybody but him, he was barely human and that human fragment was so twisted and perverted by evil that it had ceased to have a human soul even if the body still looked like that of a living person.

  As she came back to the prison reception she was handed a message from an orderly in a white uniform. It said, “Please ring hospital, Amelie’s breathing has got very bad. She rang and talked to her Mum who told her this morning Amelie had deteriorated sharply, she was starting to have real difficulty with her breathing and they had diagnosed pneumonia. They had started a course of new antibiotics and put her back on oxygen. But they were very worried about how it might turn out. It was not really a good time for her not to be by her daughter’s side. Patsy was also trying to arrange for Mathew to visit.

  Catherine left the prison and caught a taxi back to the hospital, feeling deep fear inside, hoping this was not the end of all hope. She quickly made her way up to the ward. Three doctors, two nurses and her mother stood in a circle round her daughter’s bed, blocking her view. The she saw her in side profile, she had not looked her way.

  Her daughter at first glance did not look too bad, though she was now being given oxygen which had improved her breathing and colour and made her seem less sick.

  Lizzie looked at the clock, it seemed like a whole day had passed since she got up this morning, leaving early to go to the prison because they said this was the best time. But it was only still eleven am. She wondered why time seemed to have stopped, perceived minutes only taking seconds to pass, as if her whole life was running in slow motion, until time became suspended in one final instant. Suddenly her daughter looked up, Mummy she whispered, a bright but unworldly smile on her face, what are you doing here, you are supposed to be at the prison, trying to find your father and my grandfather. You must go back and find him now.

  Catherine came to her daughter and put her hand on her small forehead. It felt unnaturally hot, a fever was taking hold. Her daughter took her own hand in hers and pulled it away, looking at her with flushed cheeks and over bright eyes.

  “Mummy I know you have been looking and it is hard. But you must not stop now, you must keep looking for your father, Sophie says you must. That is the most important thing.”

  Cathy pulled her Mum aside and asked her what she thought, it was like her daughter was sliding into a place from which there was no way back and she needed to be by her side. Yet Amelie was so clear and insistent that she must keep looking, like she could see beyond the world in which they lived and as her body slid away her mind had gained the clearness of a person of age and wisdom within this tiny bo
dy.

  Lizzie said. The oxygen seemed to have helped her breathing and colour and with luck the antibiotics will start to control the pneumonia. I she is right. There is still one more man you must visit and ask, William. I am sure if you asked the prison they would arrange for you to see him as soon as you can get back. You could be there in time for lunch, and be back not long after if you need to.

  Ring now and see if you can arrange it, and if you can then go straight away. That way you will have at least done what Amelie is asking. In the meantime I will ring the prison if there are any further problems with Amelie and you need to hurry back

  Moment of Truth

  Catherine knew she now had one roll of the dice left, and along with it was the knowledge that it may be too late anyway

  Catherine went into the prison office to ring her mother who was sitting in the hospital by Amelie’s bedside. It was hard to think coherently, let alone to talk.

  This man had been unbelievable awful, the fact that he could suggest having sex with a person who could be his own daughter had rocked her to her core, the way he had talked about her mother had been unspeakably vile, even though he had in the end admitted he had raped her. Then his demand from him to bring her daughter, she knowing that, with her daughter’s immunity shot to bits and with the hospital struggling to control her current bout of pneumonia with high powered antibiotics, there was no way she could be moved from her hospital bed, where the continuous drip fed her life sustaining fluids and nutrition, now that she could no longer eat. So that had been an impossible demand.

  It was all too hard; she wanted to walk away from this place full of awful people. But still her mind willed her to keep going. She prayed that the hospital would somehow manage to keep her daughter alive, even for a few more days and buy some chance that a bone marrow donor could be found.

  After this man William had talked about her mother in that awful way, nearly as bad as the way Dan had talked even though this man did not strike her as mad, she had felt that she had used all her chances and lost. And yet, just at the end, when he had agreed to her proposal to just bring her mother and a photo of her daughter instead she thought she had detected something more decent buried deep, a place of compassion.

  Lizzie had told her several times over the last week that she had to prepare her mind for her daughter to die, to allow her to go with grace and dignity. But she could not. She refused to give up while even one thread of hope remained, however tenous.

  She was so angry at God that he had allowed it to come to this; she knew there was someone out there with power over the Universe and the people in it. Sophie had shown her that, long ago, when she had saved her and her mother’s life. And the dream she had of Sophie a few days past, when all else seemed lost had seemed to suggest that there was still some hope if she could only find her true father. But that other despicable man had refused to help, Dan, really he was nothing more than a degenerate idiot tied to a bed in the psychiatric ward. But he still had enough knowledge to pervert and refuse her request to allow a sample to be taken to see if his tissues were a suitable match for his daughter.

  She knew she could obtain a court order to have it done, that was what the lawyer said, and it was the same with Martin’s children. But she had run out of time for that, or at least she had to try this other possible father first, in the event that he could help without further delay.

  The hourglass holding the few remaining grains of her daughter’s life was so nearly empty, there was no time for any further tries, unless a miracle happened and her daughter stabilized. So she knew realistically this was her last hope, this despicable man, her mother’s rapist, someone who had leered at her as he recalled the pleasure that this brutal act had given him.

  All these thoughts were swirling in her mind as she walked to the phone and picked it up.

  But still this one thing remained, to ask her mother to come, to drop everything, leaving little Amelie all alone while she returned to meet this man, her former rapist, subject herself to his awful scrutiny while he leered at her. It really was a devil’s choice.

  But then, while any hope remained of saving her daughter’s life she would do whatever it took, no limits. She just wished Mathew was here to help her, not locked up himself. She was so tired of trying to fight the whole world on her own.

  She steeled herself and took a deep breath, picked up the phone and starting dialing the number to get her mother. The nurse picked up and she asked to speak to her mother, saying who she was. She knew from her mother’s first words, it was there too in her tone of voice that there was a new and more immediate problem to deal with.

  “Oh my God, Cathy I am so glad you rang. You has gone downhill really fast in the last hour and a half since you left. I think we are losing her. You need to come back to the hospital as soon you can. She is going blue, despite the oxygen, and every breath is a struggle. The doctors think she has only a few hours to live.”

  Cathy stood there holding the phone in shock, it was past time to seek any help, she must go back to her daughter’s side and help her make her peace with God.

  She said, “OK Mum, I am coming.”

  She turned to go, there was a man walking fast down the hall way towards her. She recognized him as one of the warders from the cell.

  The man said to her, “He has asked to see you again; I think he had decided to help.”

  She felt torn, she should just leave; her mother had as good as said it was too late. But there was still a tiny thread of hope if this man could help, she refused to surrender it. She nodded and followed the warder back to the room.

  This man, William was still sitting there. But something indescribable was different. She looked at him closely. She could have sworn she could see the traces of tears in his otherwise hard eyes.

  He said, “Before you go, I have a favour to ask, just a favour, not a condition to helping you. Could you tell me something about this little person, your daughter that you want me to help, just something about her, anything really.”

  Catherine was thrown, she did not know what she was expecting, but it was not this. She thought and the words came. “She loves a red car. She got it for Christmas and barely got out of it until she got sick. Now, even though she is too sick to get out of bed, she can barely breathe, we keep it beside her hospital bed and she still looks at it every day and smiles.

  She heard a muffled noise behind her. She looked around, the warder was crying.

  She remembered. She had a photo of her daughter sitting in the red car on Christmas Day in her purse. She took it out and handed it to the man. “That is for you to keep, something to know her by, perhaps she is your granddaughter. That photo was taken last Christmas, just before she got sick.

  The man sat there looking at the picture, slowly something in his face crumpled until tears were streaming down his cheeks. “She looks just like my mother and my sister when they were little; there are photos of them sitting on the mantel piece where I used to live. It is a long time since I have seen them but I still remember.”

  Catherine fixed her eyes on him and bored them into him, determined to make this moment count. “So you will try and help me save the life of your granddaughter?”

  The man nodded mutely.

  Suddenly Catherine remembered what her mother had said, that it was too late, that her daughter was dying, she was unlikely to make it through until tonight.

  She shook her head, anger flaring, looking at this man who had made his offer too late. “Well thank you for your offer but I am afraid it is past time to help. When I went out before to ask my mother to come in she told me my daughter was dying, she told me to come back to the hospital to hold her in my arms one last time while she yet lives, as she will probably be dead by tonight. She has pneumonia as well as lungs full of cancer cells. The doctors told me the only hope to save her life was a bone marrow transplant. We have all searched for a month and been unable to find someone.

  “So, as a la
st act of desperation, I came to ask you to be tested to see if you were suitable and, if you were, to be the donor, even though your only role in my birth was to rape my mother.

  “So thank you for your kind offer, but it seems I will have to decline it, the time for helping is past.”

  She turned to leave. The warder started to unlock the door, his hands shaking as he fumbled with the keys.

  A voice behind her called out. “Please wait, just for another minute.”

  She turned to face him, anger still flaring along with contempt. “Yes?”

  “It may be nothing, but in my free time I have been studying medicine and things like that. I have read of a technique called white blood cell transfusion, which is used on cancer patients when their immunity is gone. They take white cells from a suitable donor and give them to the sick person and sometimes they can help fight off the infection and help also kill the cancer cells. Perhaps if I could give some blood they could try that. Then if that works and controls the pneumonia they can test me to see if I am suitable for a bone marrow donor.”

  It was something that Catherine had heard the doctors talk about, experimental and last ditch. They had dismissed it as pointless without a bone marrow transplant as at best it would buy a few days. But perhaps it was something.

  She looked steadily at the man, the rage gone. “Thank you for that, I will tell the doctors and see what they say, better still I will ring before I leave and ask.”

  She went back to the phone and got put through to the oncologist and told him what had been said. She could almost imagine the cogs in his brain turning over as the silence continued, then he spoke. “Well it is something and there is nothing else, it may at least help control the infection in her lungs and buy some time, as the antibiotics seem not to be working.