More Than Us

by Dawn Barker

  I whisked up some eggs, from our own backyard chooks, so I was reasonably okay with the others eating them, added a tablespoon of water, then poured the mixture in the pan. I added the herbs I’d chopped from the garden, some tomato and spring onion and while that started to cook, began slicing up some fruit.

  Emily got out a box of cereal and put in down on the bench top right next to me. I bristled.

  ‘Would you like some omelette?’ I said pleasantly.

  ‘No, thanks. I’m fine with cereal.’

  ‘It’s not good for you.’

  ‘It’s Weet-Bix and milk. There’s nothing wrong with it. Please don’t comment on my choices and I won’t comment on yours.’

  I closed my eyes for a moment. Michael had given me suggestions of things we could say in this situation, ways to explain, but I also knew Emily well enough to know that this wasn’t the time. Maybe Cameron had said something to her about last night. She was itching for a fight and I wasn’t going to give it to her, not this morning. ‘Cameron, Tilly!’ I called.

  ‘Let Tilly sleep in.’

  ‘Isn’t she coming to watch?’

  ‘I don’t know. I doubt it.’

  ‘She should.’

  ‘Jesus, Paul,’ she hissed, turning to face me. ‘What’s wrong with you today? Stop acting like you’re the authority in this house. She never comes to the games, let her rest, it’s the weekend.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’ I forced a smile then turned away from her as I heard footsteps.

  ‘Morning, Cam,’ I said brightly. He glared at me too. He hadn’t forgotten about last night yet then. ‘I’m making you an omelette,’ I said. ‘Give you energy for today.’

  He sat at the table and I saw him smile past my shoulder at Emily. I kept looking at him until he met my eyes, then he looked down at the table. I turned around to Emily. ‘Your mum and I are excited about today. You nervous?’

  ‘No, I’m okay.’

  ‘Before a big game, I used to have this funny feeling, it was like I was nervous, but I was also ready, you know, sometimes it was almost like I was in a dream, like it wasn’t real.’

  ‘Dad, he’s playing against Scotch, not the All Blacks.’ Tilly smiled as she walked in. Her hair was tangled in waves over her shoulders, her face pale. She had a thick dressing gown over her pyjamas as she walked over to the kitchen. ‘What are you making?’

  ‘A veggie omelette… very healthy.’

  ‘Cheese in it?’

  ‘Nope,’ I said. ‘Dairy free.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’ll have a little bit.’

  ‘Finally,’ I smiled, letting a laugh out. ‘Someone who appreciates my cooking.’

  Tilly rolled her eyes as she folded her leg under herself and sat at the table. I let out the breath I was holding, and turned back to the pan.

  Twenty-Four

  Emily

  ‘He’s doing well, isn’t he?’ I said, smiling at Paul as we stood on the sidelines.

  Paul raised his eyebrows and nodded. ‘He’s is. We just need to get some points on the board though…’

  ‘Come on, Cam!’ I shouted as Cam ran towards a tackle, then clapped my hand over my mouth and laughed as I nudged Paul. We weren’t meant to cheer these days: parents were meant to stand quietly to stop the obsessed parents having meltdowns on the side of the pitch. Cameron was good; he had inherited Paul’s athletic skill. But perhaps it wasn’t genetics, perhaps it was just that even before he was born, it was assumed and expected that he would be an athlete of some description. Even when I was pregnant, every time he’d kicked inside my taut belly streaked by jagged red scars, Paul joked about his left footer. He was given a Scotland soccer strip when he was born, a ball for his first birthday, a cricket set when he was two, rugby balls, a footy, a skateboard. He went to Auskick and Nippers and Little Athletics and rugby training and swimming squad. The only choice he really had was which sport he was going to dedicate himself to.

  But I never felt bad about pushing him in sport. Team sports were good for him, the psychologists had told me that. It was a way to make him part of something, to understand rules and boundaries, a way to socialise in a healthy way. And when Cameron fixed his mind to something, then it became his life. I unashamedly tried to focus his attention on something that everyone applauded, so that he would be admired by friends, parents, the school. Who doesn’t love a kid who is great at sport?

  Just then, Paul’s phone rang. He took it out of his pocket, glanced at the screen and then answered it, stepping back from the field. ‘Damian,’ he said brightly. I shook my head and pointed at the field, but Paul turned and walked away. Bloody Damian. Checking up on him on a weekend, no doubt telling him he should be at another meeting. I still saw Paul struggle not to drink, not to grab a packet of chips, not to go out and, presumably, gamble. I saw it when he looked off into the distance, when he was distracted and his muscles tensed; I could see him battling against himself. And then he would pick up his keys and go out. I bit my tongue as I saw that all these guys in Phoenix denigrated the modern world when it suited them – the TV, internet, alcohol – and yet they were happy to drive around in expensive cars and have a website for their addiction centre and make money by selling pizzas and alcohol to the public in their restaurants as well as taking payments every month from people who were vulnerable and at their lowest points. But how could I complain when I had Paul back? At least he was here at the game.

  * * *

  Last week, it was Tilly’s last hockey game. Paul had some work to do, he had said, even thought it was a Saturday morning. He would meet us there. I had driven the car up onto the verge underneath a sprawling fig tree next to the oval. Before I’d even switched off the engine, Tilly had opened her door and jumped out, her hockey stick clattering out of the car behind her.

  ‘I don’t see him,’ she said, glaring at me.

  ‘He said he’ll be here.’

  ‘There’s Ruby and Naomi over there,’ she said, shading her eyes and peering into the distance. ‘I’m going to go and warm up.’

  ‘He’s probably just parked somewhere else and is already there. Go get started and I’ll look out for him.’

  Tilly had slammed the car door and hoisted her sports bag on her back, carrying the stick in the other hand. As the engine cooled, I watched her walk further away from me. Her legs looked so thin as the wind blew the fabric of her tracksuit trousers around them, and I felt a physical pull towards her that I hadn’t felt for so long. She was so grown up now, and yet so vulnerable. Throughout all this with Cameron, she hadn’t complained. She’d done her homework, organised herself, never complained about anything, and I’d just let her do that, been relieved and grateful that she was so good. What went on in her mind? Of course this was affecting her; how could it not?

  I swung my legs out of the car then reached back for my coffee. I looked around the cars parked on the grass, those across the street, and I couldn’t see Paul’s car. I wouldn’t call him. I would not call him.

  Just as the whistle went to start the game, just as Tilly had glanced around the crowd again with a frown on her face, the game started. Now she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the game because she’d be wondering where he was, if he’d come. Paul couldn’t see how anxious she was under that front.

  And then I heard his voice in my ear, and I could almost feel the thick smugness sliding through my ear canal as he mumbled, ‘Good morning.’

  I turned around. He was holding a take away cup with a chamomile teabag string hanging out of it. Plenty time, obviously, to stop off at the cafe. ‘They’ve started.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that.’ He managed to catch Tilly’s eye and waved wildly at her; she grinned and raised her stick for a moment, then ran off after the ball.

  ‘Don’t distract her.’

  He sighed, then nodded and smiled at a few of the other parents milling around who still treated him like a star. Look at the athlete, and look how he’s passed his ath
letic prowess onto his daughter, and how he’s given up his Saturday morning to watch and cheer her school team on. I’ve been here to see her every single week since she was kid, without fail, and no one gives me a medal.

  We both stood and watched, cheering at the right times and if you saw us from a distance, you’d assume we were just another married couple.

  * * *

  At least he was on time today for Cameron’s game, I suppose, even if he had gone off to answer his phone. I watched Cameron run down the wing, waiting for a pass, but then the other team kicked it out.

  ‘How long ‘til half time?’ I said to Max, one of the dads standing next to me.

  He looked at his watch. ‘Just a few minutes I think. We need to get a try before half time.’

  ‘I know! I’m so nervous for them!’ I said.

  We chatted while I tried to watch for Paul out of the corner of my eye. I was not going to give him the satisfaction of turning around to look for him. Cameron glanced over; I gave him a thumbs-up and a little wave. He was looking thin too. I had to make more of an effort to get extra calories into him, as well as Tilly. Between the tablets and Paul’s obsession with healthy eating and no added anything, Cameron had lost some of his bulk.

  ‘Turn around,’ I mouthed as I waved my finger to get him to turn around again and concentrate. He was scanning the crowd, I knew, looking for Paul. Part of me wanted to protect Cameron from knowing his dad had gone to take a phone call, but a part of me wanted to tell him, your dad’s on the phone. Your biggest game and he’s gone to talk to his crazy mates. My fists were clenched and rage surged up in me. I turned around to see where Paul was, to tell him to get off the bloody phone and pay attention. And then I heard it.

  A crunch. A snap like bones breaking. An exhalation of air. A piercing whistle. A gasp. A scream.

  Someone grabbed onto my arm. From my peripheral vision, I saw hands go to mouths, faces grimace, and heads snap towards me. Before I even registered what I was looking at, I was sprinting onto the pitch.

  Cameron was on his back, spread-eagled, eyes fluttering behind his lids as if insects were crawling around trying to pierce through the paper-thin skin.

  ‘Oh my God, Cammie!’ I dropped to my knees on the grass next to him.

  A hand on my shoulder held me firmly back. ‘Don’t move him. It could be his neck.’

  I pushed the hand off my shoulder and looked up. All the players stood around us, staring at Cameron, faces frozen. One boy – no, he was bigger than that – a young man, wearing the maroon strip of the opposing team, was pale, his eyes wide and staring. It had been him.

  ‘What happened?’ I said to him, quietly, forcefully, as I took the limp hand of my son.

  ‘I didn’t mean it.’

  ‘Tell me. Quick! I need to know what happened.’

  ‘It was just a tackle…’ He looked around at his teammates, then up to their coach who was running towards him and steering him away.

  I looked up. ‘Where’s Paul? Paul!’ I shouted, wildly looking around me, and now he was sprinting across the pitch towards me, his face aghast.

  ‘Emily, don’t move him,’ Saunders, our coach, said.

  My voice was higher pitched now. ‘What happened?’

  Paul arrived and was down on his knees too, but I couldn’t hear what anyone was saying for the ringing in my ears. ‘Cameron, it’s Mum, can you open your eyes?’ I looked up. ‘He’s unconscious, Paul.’

  ‘He’ll be okay, Em. Come on mate, Cam, wake up.’ Paul’s voice was trembling.

  ‘He can’t hear you!’ I hissed. ‘He was looking for you! He wasn’t paying attention because he was looking for you! Where were you?’

  ‘We’ve called an ambulance,’ someone said behind me. I ignored them.

  My heart was racing and my voice was piercing. ‘What happened? This is a schoolboy game of rugby. What the hell happened?’

  ‘I didn’t mean it!’ That boy again, trembling now, eyes wet.

  Suddenly, Cameron’s limp hand that I held in my own squeezed my fingers tight. The breath I’d been holding escaped.

  But, before I could talk, Cameron’s hand went limp again, then squeezed with such force that I thought my fingers would break. My heart seemed to stop as I looked down at his body as it started to convulse. His hand slackened again, and I withdrew my own and held it to my mouth as his arms curled into his body, then splayed out so straight that I was sure his elbows would snap, then his whole body jerked and convulsed as if something was inside him throwing him around on the muddy spot where he lay like a marionette. I screamed. His face was contorted in pain, the muscles around his jaw tense and tight, and then a streak of blood ran out of the corner of his mouth and down his chin.

  ‘His tongue,’ I shouted, though there may as well have been no one else there as the circle around him stretched thinly and moved away from him as if he was something to fear. But my words seemed to break the spell, as suddenly everyone wanted to help and came forward, hesitantly. ‘His neck,’ I wailed. They had said not to move him, but now his body was convulsing and his neck and head were lolling around and all I could picture were the hard, little bones of his cervical spine splitting and grinding together and snapping his spinal cord. But his arms and legs were still moving, so surely that meant that the signals were still travelling from his brain down that thick white spinal cord to the nerves of his hands and feet.

  ‘Shit!’ Paul shouted. ‘Where’s the bloody ambulance?’ He rocked back and punched the ground beside him, crying now. ‘Shit!’

  ‘Stop, Paul! Please, stop.’ I looked at the crowd around me. ‘Where is the ambulance?’

  What should I do? You were meant to put people fitting in the recovery position so they didn’t choke on their tongue, but what if they might have broken their neck? But how could moving him be even worse than this? His tongue would be swollen, the blood that had surely come from his teeth grinding down on it would be pooling now in his throat. ‘Get a collar,’ I screamed. ‘Don’t we have a collar? Who’s on first aid?’

  As the coach ran off to get the first aid bag, which probably only had an ice pack in it, Cameron’s convulsions eased, and then a few seconds later, it was over. I watched as a dark stain on his shorts spread and I wanted to cover him with a blanket, to save him the indignity of having dozens of people watch him not only fitting, but losing control of his bladder. I leaned over him and laid my body on his, crying, and stayed there as I heard a siren in the distance, thankful that I could feel the rapid beat of his heart under my cheek.

  Twenty-Five

  Emily

  I steadied myself with my hand on the wall of the ambulance as I jostled around on the fold-down seat in the back. Paul followed in his car. There was nothing I could do as I watched the paramedic strap an oxygen mask to Cameron’s face, stick ECG leads on his bare chest and connect a bag of fluids to the cannula in the back of his hand and another lead to his finger. I could barely see him beneath it all. I answered all their questions as best I could, but I hadn’t seen him fall. They asked if he was normally well, and if he was on any medication. He must have had a knock to the head – that was the only explanation.

  As I watched his face, his eyes fluttered then opened.

  I breathed out and spoke in a wavering voice. ‘Oh, thank God. Cameron, it’s Mum, we’re in an ambulance. You’re fine, though, you’re fine, darling, it’s all going to be okay.’

  His eyes flitted rapidly; I could tell he was still out of it. A few moments later, he opened them again and he seemed to focus for a second. He began to sit up and at the same time, his hands reached for the oxygen mask, pulling it off his face.

  ‘No, sweetie,’ I said quickly, looking at the paramedic as she put her hand on him to gently push him back down. ‘We’re in an ambulance. You were knocked out at rugby. We’ll be at the hospital soon.’

  ‘I’ve got to…’ his voice sounded slurred and muffled beneath the mask. Then his eyes closed again.

  M
y heart sped up and I looked at the paramedic. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘It’s not uncommon,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, we’re almost at the hospital. We’ll be there any minute.’

  I nodded and looked back at my son, and before long, I felt the ambulance slow and the doors opened.

  Paul appeared as Cameron’s trolley was unloaded from the ambulance and he was pushed through the sliding glass doors of the emergency department.

  ‘Oh Paul,’ I clutched his arm. ‘He woke up but he didn’t make sense and now he’s unconscious again.’ I started to cry as I saw Paul’s eyes fill with tears too. He pulled me towards him.

  ‘He’ll be okay,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Yes. He will.’ I nodded and bit my bottom lip as I listened to the paramedics handing over to the hospital staff in low voices as, without even looking at Cameron, they put new leads and masks and tubes on him. Cameron started to struggle. ‘Paul,’ I said, pulling away from him. ‘He’s waking up.’

  I hurried over, trying to get to him between the doctors and nurses that surrounded him in different colours of scrubs. I had no idea who was who. There was a man in green scrubs, with balding dark hair and black-framed glasses holding a clipboard, and by the way the others moved around him, I guessed he was in charge.

  ‘You’re Mum?’ he said. ‘And Dad?’

  I nodded as Paul answered ‘Yes. Paul Napier,’ he said confidently and held out his hand.

  ‘Brad Eaton,’ he said. ‘I’m the senior registrar here in ED.’

  ‘He’s waking up,’ I said, reaching over to put my hand on Cameron’s shoulder as he began to wriggle. ‘Cam, it’s okay, it’s Mum, I’m here,’ I said, trying to calm the shrillness in my voice.

  ‘Hey, mate,’ said Paul, and I could hear his voice wavering and knew that he too was barely holding it together. ‘Cam, it’s okay, mate.’

  Cameron was moaning now and pulling at the leads on his chest. The doctor turned away from us and said something to the nurses and one of them hurried off while the other one held Cameron around the wrists.