by James Plumb
He only knew that, for some unknown reason, a man had tried to destroy his family. He had no logical explanation for why the man would target his daughter. What logical reason could there be for a grown man to attack, and bite, a five year old girl?
Jen continued with her questions, the insinuation was clear: How could you let this happen?
Gareth, to the best of his ability, continued to answer everyone’s questions. And yet, at no point did anyone attempt to address the sole question he wanted answered:
Is she going to be okay?
By 10pm, Jen was insisting that Gareth go home to rest. He flat out refused, until a nurse pointed out that he was still wearing his blood-splattered clothes and it was upsetting the other patients. Jen handed Gareth the car keys, as nurses began to set up a fold-out bed. Jen moved to Ana’s bedside and stroked her hair. She slipped her arm through the knot of tubes and wires which were keeping Ana alive.
On the drive home, Gareth kept peering into the rear-view mirror at the empty child’s booster seat.
He entered his pitch black house and turned on as many lights as he could. Without his wife and daughter the house was too quiet, so he sat down and turned the television on.
He tried watching something but he couldn’t comprehend why the shapes and sounds on the screen were talking about matters other than his daughter. Why would others continue with their lives when his was falling apart? Why would they screen such banalities when a child lay dying in a hospital bed somewhere? He turned over to one of the news channels and was confronted with images of conflict, disease and bloodshed. Perversely, he found comfort in them. Normally he would have registered concern at the proximity of some of the news stories, but his worry for his daughter meant he didn’t focus on the images of civil unrest and details of a pandemic which had come to his country’s shores. More maddening thoughts filled his brain until his body finally gave up and he slid into unconsciousness.
***
When he woke up next morning he wasn’t on the sofa. He was in his daughter’s bed among the assorted dolls and stuffed animals. Confused, he looked down and found that he was still dressed in the blood-covered clothes from yesterday. His temporary amnesia leaked away and was replaced by the knowledge that his daughter was in critical condition and that it had happened on his watch.
He peeled out of his blood-crusted clothes and found that the blood, the stranger’s blood, had soaked through and stained his skin. Numbly he stepped into the shower and washed off the blood, hoping that the guilt would wash off also.
Stepping out of the shower, his phone went off. Staring at the screen, Gareth didn’t recognise the number.
‘Hello?’
‘Gareth, its Tom O’Bannon.’
‘Tom?’
‘Your lawyer, we met yesterday at the hospital.’
Gareth’s body went rigid, the muscles locking. He couldn’t feel his face, just his heart pounding in his chest.
‘Oh.’
‘I’m just calling you with a quick update.’
‘Ok,’ Gareth managed.
‘It’s… Well, it’s quite odd, really.’
‘Odd…’
‘Yes, but odd in a positive way. The police have carried out their post-mortem on their John Doe, the attacker. Anyway the autopsy results, which were double-checked, dates the time of death several days before the date of the incident.’
‘Days?’
‘Even allowing for various environmental factors like heat or humidity, there is no way that the body could have been killed during the alleged attack.’ The lawyer’s voice was racing with excitement.
‘But-’
‘Gareth, this is good news.’
‘I don’t—’
‘This evidence, verified by the police themselves, combined with two other factors, is currently keeping you out of prison.’
‘Other factors?’
‘The autopsy evidence doesn’t tally and there were no witnesses to the alleged attack.’
‘You said two other factors.’
‘They’ve lost the body.’
‘How do you lose a body?’
‘No idea, some admin error probably, but they’ve managed it. When this gets to court, it’ll be a farce. They’re embarrassed.’
‘So, what next?’
‘I’ll keep you updated and out of prison. The police aren’t pursuing this at the moment as they’ve got their hands full.’
‘They’re too busy for a murder case?’
The line was silent for a moment. Before the lawyer replied.
‘Don’t use the “M” word, Gareth. But yes. And we lawyers are pretty busy at the moment. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the world’s going to hell right now, so business is good.’
FOUR
Later, Gareth and Jen sat by Ana’s bedside as a consultant tried to update them on their daughter’s situation. He informed them Ana had lost a lot of blood, and that they were giving her a transfusion. They were also running a series of blood tests on Ana in case of infection from her bite. Gareth and Jen listened abstractly to the information being delivered to them but could not process it. It sounded like exposition from one of the medical shows on TV that Jen watched, not something which told them about their child’s wellbeing.
‘Is she going to be okay?’ Jen asked numbly, interrupting the consultant’s spiel.
The consultant hesitated.
‘Physically, yes, she should be. Assuming the blood transfusion is successful and there are no complications, we should be able to give her antibiotics to fight off any infection that she may have. The wounds to her neck will have to be dressed and kept clean, and when she is discharged we can show you how to do that yourselves. Mentally and emotionally…’ Another hesitation. ‘Ana has been through an extreme traumatic event. At her age, she might bounce back straight away. But she might not, she could suffer with anything from night terrors to full blown catatonia. At this stage it is too early to tell. I’d like to monitor her progress in hospital for the rest of the week. If all goes well, we’ll arrange some regular appointments with a child specialist.’
‘A psychologist?’ Jen murmured.
‘We want to help Ana deal with this trauma as healthily as possible. If not, it could lead to complications for her in later life.’
‘Do they know what was wrong with him?’ Gareth asked.
‘I’m sorry?’ the doctor responded.
‘The… man who bit her, what did he have?’
‘I’m not sure-’
‘Did he have AIDs or HIV or—’
‘As I’ve said, we’ve tested Ana for those diseases and her results have come back negative.’
‘Was he mentally ill or—?’
‘I’m afraid that as the police have been unable to identify the man and, I understand, there have been further complications with the body, we have no way of checking his medical history to determine whether he was suffering from any form of mental illness before he died.’
And there it was. The reminder that, no matter what the reason, Gareth had ended a life.
Being wrapped up in concern for his daughter’s wellbeing, gave Gareth the perfect excuse to not focus on the fact that he had killed a man. But when he did allow himself to think about it, he came to the realisation that he could kill. It was no longer a theoretical question. Gareth would, under the right circumstances, end someone else’s life.
Pursuing the dark train of thought, Gareth knew that, if required to, he could do it again. And just before retreating from that morbid notion, he realised that he felt the briefest glimmer of pride at the idea that he could indeed kill to protect his family.
He gripped Jen’s hand on his lap and gave it a reassuring squeeze, as she lay her head on his shoulder.
While Gareth stayed by Ana’s bedside that Sunday night, Jen rang both their places of employment to leave messages requesting unpaid parental leave. Gareth knew that he shouldn’t be concerned with such mundane matters as
work while his daughter lay in hospital, but he couldn’t help it. With Jen teaching, and the notorious difficulty she faced getting any leave during term time, Gareth knew that at some point he’d have to come up with a workable alternative to look after Ana.
At midnight, he lay back and tried to get comfortable on the fold out bed.
Sleep didn’t come for him.
He grabbed his phone, its light illuminating most of Ana’s ward. He hesitated briefly before loading up his work e-mails. As Ana slept, Gareth tried to respond to as many work queries as he could off his phone.
At some point after 3am, Gareth surrendered and lay back in his cot, staring at the ceiling and listening to the soundtrack of small children crying for their parents.
FIVE
The next few weeks were a constant cycle of different locations for Gareth and Jen, alternating between hospital visits, appointments with various consultants and Ana’s GP, and trips to pharmacies to pick up liquid antibiotics which their daughter promptly brought back up.
Gareth and Jen were pleasantly surprised by the news that the hospital was discharging Ana. Some new superbug or virus was doing the rounds and it was deemed that Ana would be safer at home rather than at risk in the ward. The early elation of being able to bring their daughter home became replaced by a dread when they realised how much work the entire team of nurses and cleaners had done looking after her. They quickly learned to miss the support and advice of the ward staff, with the crushing realisation that it was up to them to nurse their daughter back to full health.
Ana’s lack of verbal communication became replaced by body language, sometimes in the literal sense. Gareth and Jen learnt to interpret their daughter through her bodily waste, divining her temperament via the colour and consistency of her stool. They ceased to become parents, their role becoming more like a janitor or caretaker of a broken system. They’d had plenty of experience of this when she was an infant, but neither were prepared for the exhaustion that they now faced.
If either of them had been less tired they might have been able to draw up the following routine that their lives had become:
Get out of bed (not wake, as there was no promise of sleep).
Attempt to give Ana her medicine (succeed in getting the liquid antibiotics all over their clothes, her clothes, bedsheets and walls).
Approximately 30 minutes later, clean up bright yellow vomit as best as possible.
Wash clothes and bed linen.
Hang up washing on line if sunny (more realistically keep heating on full blast and dry on radiators).
Visit pharmacy for renewal of medication.
Argue whose time it was to deal with Ana’s newfound incontinence.
Ignore mounting voice messages from places of employment.
Appear a cheerful, alert parent for the various consultants who visited their home.
Attempt to get Ana to eat or drink.
Throw away uneaten food.
Clean up black bilious vomit.
Scrub carpet with various cleaning products in vain hope that it won’t leave a mark.
Tuck Ana into bed.
Late night supermarkets.
Lie down in bed (not sleep, never sleep).
Rise at the sound of Ana’s night terrors.
Hug hysterical screaming child until she passes out.
And repeat.
And repeat.
And repeat.
SIX
Like many men, Gareth was not a fan of shops. If he was able to do the majority of shopping online he would. The one exception to this, he discovered during the first year of Ana’s life, was the 2am Tesco’s Club. When Ana came along, he and Jen were totally unprepared, but they found an ideal substitute for their lack of organisation: a 24 hour supermarket. Frequently finding themselves out of nappies, baby wipes or baby milk meant that Gareth found himself at the virtually abandoned giant super store, able to browse through the air conditioned shop in peace, away from the chaos of a household with a baby in it.
And now, after a few years’ absence, Gareth was returning to the 2am Tesco’s Club, this time for Calpol, Liquid Ibuprofen, Diolyrite, air freshener, carpet cleaner, washing powder and caffeine pills. Muzak played gently over the deserted aisles as Gareth pushed his trolley. Gareth nodded at the other customers as they passed, guessing them either to be sleep-deprived new parents or truckers looking for legal ways to stay awake and alert.
While in the washing powder aisle, trying to remember which detergent gave Jen a rash, his phone rang.
It was Jen.
‘What have I forgotten to get?’ he answered.
‘She tried to attack me,’ Jen’s voice cried down the line. In the background, Gareth could hear screams and the sounds of furniture being overturned.
‘What?’ he managed.
‘Ana was sat in the kitchen with me, she wouldn’t sleep. I was preparing some food for tomorrow, I cut myself and the next thing I know she launched herself at me.’
‘Is she… Are you okay?’
‘Gareth, she tried to bite me. I had to make her stop.’
Gareth looked around the supermarket aisle.
‘Gareth? Did you hear me? I hit her. She was so strong and I hit her. I punched her, Gareth, and I kicked her when she went down.’
‘Shit, Jen. You hit her?’
‘I couldn’t get her off—’
‘She’s only five, you’re a grown woman, you could—’
‘She was feral, it wasn’t—’
‘Is she okay?’
‘Just come home,’ Jen pleaded.
‘IS SHE OKAY?’
‘She’s got a bruise over her eye.’
‘Jen, the fucking Social will take her off us the moment they think we’re not coping.’
‘Just come home, Gareth. I had to shut her in her room, she’s destroying the place.’
‘I’m halfway through the shop-’
‘Come home.’
Gareth abandoned his trolley and numbly walked out of the store under the gaze of the security men.
In a daze, Gareth drove home, barely conscious of his journey.
Screeching onto his driveway, he leapt out of the car, and into the house.
As he passed through the front door, the smell hit him first. With Ana vomiting up any food or drink they tried to give her and suffering from incontinence since the attack, the whole house had taken on an oppressive odour.
Jen rushed to the door as he entered. Pushing past her, he ran up the stairs, two steps at a time.
‘It’s okay, she’s calmed down,’ Jen shouted up the stairs, as Gareth pushed open the door.
He found his daughter lying flat on the bed, covered in sweat, hair matted to her head, her chest rapidly moving with shallow breaths. Leaning forward, Gareth stroked her forehead, and although sweaty, it was cold to the touch.
Kissing her, he crept out of her room, to find Jen on the landing.
Despite brimming with anger at Jen’s actions, he held her to his chest and they both stood there, silently crying for what seemed like an age.
They retreated to the kitchen. In lieu of a better idea, Gareth put the kettle on, while Jen collapsed into a chair. Automatically Gareth started preparing two mugs, as the water in the kettle bubbled and boiled loudly.
But not loudly enough, Gareth could still hear his own thoughts.
Finishing the tea, he sat down next to Jen, placing the unasked for mug in front of her. After several moments of heavy silence and false starts, he spoke.
‘So… you cut yourself. And after that she panicked?’
‘It wasn’t panic, she launched herself at me. Like Mum’s dog when you drop food on the floor.’
‘And you couldn’t stop her?’
‘I tried. I held her off but she kept on coming.’
‘So you hit her?’
Jen couldn’t respond. Couldn’t look at Gareth.
Gareth’s hands circled his mug, the heat from the tea inside scalding his pa
lms as he gripped it increasingly tightly.
‘It wasn’t…’ Jen began, and then hesitated. ‘She didn’t… she wasn’t acting like Ana.’
‘You’re not acting like her mother.’
‘I was supposed to let her attack me?’
‘You don’t hit her!’ Gareth barked. ‘We don’t hit Ana.’
‘I’m sorry but there’s nothing in any of the parenting books I’ve read about what you’re supposed to do if your child tries to bite you!’
Jen’s voice echoed around the kitchen, filling the following silence.
‘What wouldn’t you do for her?’ Gareth asked, focussing on his mug.
‘What?’ Jen asked, looking up.
‘For our daughter, what wouldn’t you do? Because I’m racking my brain and the list of things I wouldn’t do for Ana is really fucking short.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying that, as a parent, aren’t we supposed to do anything for our kids?’
‘Gareth… I know you love our daughter. I love her at least as much as you do, but the lack of sleep is starting to show. The constant trips to the pharmacy, to the doctors, to consultants, to A&E. We’re run ragged. Neither of us are thinking straight.’
Gareth continued to stare at his mug of tea on the kitchen table. His eye trailed over to the fridge.
He gulped down the remnants of his tea.
Slamming the mug on the table, he leapt up and swung open the door to the fridge. Peering inside, he moved around the blocks of cheese, half empty tins of beans and sad remnants of ready meals until he came to an unopened tray of pork chops.
Grabbing the tray, he pushed past Jen and headed for his daughter’s room.
Jen followed, as Gareth opened the door.
Ana was still lying quietly in bed on top of the bedsheets. Gareth knelt beside her and cradled her head lifting it gently.
‘Gareth, don’t, she’ll be sick!’ Jen cried.
Gareth, ignoring his wife, stabbed his thumb through the cellophane covering on the tray of pork chops. He tipped the tray allowing the pigs blood to run to the hole he’d made.
Blood poured out, but Ana pulled her head away uninterested, drops of pig blood falling onto her pillowcase.