‘That man she is with, he’s a journalist. An activist journalist. He shouldn’t be here. The hospital is supposed to be in lockdown. I’ll call security.’
Maggie’s hand went to her earpiece. She mumbled her instructions. Too late, Emily and the man were coming over. I didn’t move.
Emily and I faced one another. There had been a moment in the musical, exactly like this; it wasn’t clear whether we would dance or fight.
‘You’re not permitted to be in the building,’ Maggie said.
‘Settle, love, I’m just leaving,’ the journalist replied.
I imagine Maggie and the journalist were staring at one another, too. All I saw was Emily. The truth had settled on her. I, Rene, was alive. Theo’s fate was less certain.
Emily still bristled, but the anger was deeper now, more complicated.
‘There’s something I need to say to you,’ she said.
‘Rene, I think we should—’ Maggie leaned close, her hand on my arm.
‘Why, don’t you want him to hear it?’ The journalist’s voice was full of fight. ‘Do you want me to publish that you refused his girlfriend a chance to talk to him about—’
‘You publish anything about what happens inside this hospital—’
‘Careful now, threats make excellent headlines.’
‘Security are on their way.’
Emily turned back to the journalist, as if uncertain. He nodded his encouragement.
‘Just say what you told me you wanted to say,’ he said.
‘Emily, you don’t have to do anything this man—’
‘He’s dead, Rene,’ Emily spoke as if the other conversation was unrelated to ours. As if we were the only two people in the corridor. Her stage trick. ‘Theo’s dead.’
‘I know that,’ I said.
‘I don’t think you do.’ Her voice was shaking. Her face took on an expression I’d only seen once before, when I’d paid her an unexpected visit, and she hadn’t heard me come in. That time she was on her knees, her eyes closed in prayer. I misunderstood. I thought she was just reaching down for something, under the bed.
How’s God today? I’d asked. It was meant to be a joke.
The expression was not one of embarrassment, although I think she felt that too. It was the look of having been exposed, or rather of the gap between us having been exposed. A gap too wide for either of us to reach across, so we’d ignored it. Her face then spoke of fragility, and the sadness that comes from understanding how easily everything can disappear. We covered it over quickly that time: an apology, a smile, a change in the conversation. But we both knew some unassailable fact of the future had leaked back into that moment. And now, the future had arrived.
Emily’d had her head shaved for an audition two weeks before, and the first millimetre of fuzz had recolonised her scalp. I liked to rub it; she would roll her tongue to make a sound like a purring cat. All those little intimacies that translate so poorly beyond four walls. Now I could no more reach out to her hair than I could rub my head against her breasts. Her eyes were bloodshot and her cheeks were dulled by drying tears. Her eyelashes were clumped and there was a red mark on her neck, just below her ear, small and angry, the beginning of a pimple. She was half a head shorter than me, a woman with her head tilted ever upwards, inquisitive, combative.
The guards, wherever they were, were taking their time.
‘You know the first thing Theo ever told me about you?’ Emily said. ‘It was at one of the early rehearsals, before you joined the cast. He told me about when you were little, and you found a bumble bee with a damaged wing. He said you kept it in a plastic container. You gave it flowers and honey and water, and a big overturned shell to crawl under. People told you they only lived a few days, but you insisted on looking after it, and you kept it alive for three months.’
I got the feeling it wasn’t the first time today she’d told that story. Eulogy turned accusation.
‘Is that true?’
‘Some of it,’ I said.
‘What did he lie about?’ Emily asked.
‘I’m pretty sure he was the one who found the bee. Why did he tell you that, do you think?’
‘I think he was trying to sound sweet,’ she said.
‘Yeah, me too. So what’s your point?’ I didn’t mean to sound so aggressive. I watched her flinch.
‘Just to remind you, that that’s how you are,’ she said. ‘That you see something broken, and you immediately think it’s your responsibility to fix it. And sometimes you can’t.’
The journalist leaned forward, as if to will the next sentence out of her. I heard footsteps, and turned to their source: two security guards—not huge men, but determined, business-like—approaching fast.
‘All right, sir, I need you to come with us now. Any recording devices you have must be—’
‘Okay, okay.’ The journalist held his hands in the air, as if surrendering to a gun.
‘And the girl?’ the older of the guards asked.
What was left of his hair was meanly cropped. I noticed a stud in his left ear, and beneath the cuff of his uniform, the beginning of a tattoo. Something reptilian.
‘She can stay,’ Maggie said.
‘Come on, sir, this way.’
As they moved off, the journalist tipped his head close to mine.
‘What will be left, Rene? When this is done, what stories shall we tell ourselves?’
His head jerked backwards. The younger guard, a wiry man with a barely contained enthusiasm for violence, had the journalist’s arm behind his back in a flash, with the wrist locked backwards, tight enough for the sentence to finish in a grunt of pain.
And then there were three.
‘I’m sorry,’ Maggie said. ‘We can’t allow this to become a media event.’
‘Too late for that,’ Emily said.
‘Perhaps.’
Silence. I imagined the day as a theatre script. Pause. A silence. They wait.
Emily stayed quiet. Perhaps, without the journalist near, she had lost her confidence. Or perhaps she had never wanted to say it. And I had nothing to add but sorry. It was up to Maggie, to get us talking.
‘I feel terrible about the mix-up, and I will, in due course, do anything I can to help you, but right now, we have other—’
‘Can I talk to him?’ Emily asked. ‘Just five minutes. Me and him, alone.’
Her eyes filled with tears. She looked lost, diminished. I wanted to hold her. She was right: I did want to fix things. I wanted to fix this.
Maggie hesitated. ‘I don’t mean to appear unsympathetic, but time is—’
‘Just five minutes, please.’
Maggie was about to agree, but Dr Huxley appeared. His earlier calmness had gone, as if some strange vibration had passed through the hospital, knocking everybody from their equilibrium. He spoke quickly, the command cracking like the end of a whip.
‘Back to the office, both of you.’
‘We just needed to see Emily,’ Maggie tried to explain. ‘The admission details became�
��’
‘I’m aware of your mistake,’ he snapped.
‘Emily and I just need five—’
‘There is no time. Theo cannot wait.’
I can’t imagine it was accidental, the use of his name like that.
‘Say your goodbyes.’
Emily wrapped her arms about herself, as if she was cold, and bit her bottom lip. She looked at the space between her feet and mine and spoke as if she were practising lines.
‘I love you, Rene. I wanted us to move in together, find a place. I was going to ask you, tonight, at dinner. I was terrified you’d say no.’
‘I wouldn’t have,’ I whispered.
‘But if you do this,’ she said, ‘then who will there be for me to love? Can you tell me that?’
‘Ms Watts, do I need to call the security?’
I took Emily in my arms, and felt her wet cheek against my neck.
‘Me,’ I told her. ‘You can love me.’ My throat tightened. I held my breath, counted.
‘Which one of you?’
After the first time I’d stayed at Emily’s house for the weekend, Theo had asked me if it was love. I said I didn’t know. How would you measure it? He said, well if me and Emily were both drowning, which one would you save first?
I’d said, you’re a better swimmer than I am, and didn’t think about it again.
‘I’m not trying to hurt you,’ I said.
‘Don’t do it,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t let them.’
I felt Doctor Huxley’s hand on my elbow, moving us apart.
I love the smell of Emily, the exact temperature of her skin against mine. Just thinking of it, even now, makes me want to cry. I let go and she didn’t meet my eye. She turned and walked down the corridor.
I waited for her to look back, so that I could wave goodbye, but she never did.
14
When we got to the office, Doctor Huxley pulled Maggie back out into the corridor. I wondered if her mistake would cost her job.
I waited and thought of Emily, walking away, and what she’d meant by the bee story. I thought of the journalist, and what the other thing was, that he had wanted Emily to tell me. And I thought of Theo, because I had no choice.
And here, as I remember it, thought is the wrong word. Thought does not capture the feeling of simply receiving: of being bludgeoned, again and again, by the ugly, intransigent truth.
They didn’t leave me there for long. The clock was ticking. They hadn’t resolved their differences; Maggie’s lips were bitten-thin, her jaw locked, her eyes taking shelter behind her glasses. The doctor motioned for me to sit down. I’d been pacing.
Huxley pulled up his chair and Maggie moved into hers, completing the triangle. He wasted no time.
‘As you know, Maggie has spent the last hours assessing your emotional and psychological state. The decision we are asking you to make is a huge one, and no person could feel adequately prepared for it. Nevertheless, there is a fine difference, an important difference, between a mind that is strained and one that is broken. This is not a perfect science, and everything the two of you have talked about has been carefully recorded, for future reference. You will have unrestricted access to this file, and will be able to share it with whomsoever you choose. Whatever you may think of this process, and I admit many aspects of it have been rushed and unfortunate, it is not the case, must not be the case, that it involves any degree of subterfuge. We have told you all you need to know, and you are free to ask any questions. The decision you make today will be yours and yours alone.
‘But, in the first instance, there is Maggie’s assessment. And so I have asked her now, to report back to us both on her findings. I would like you to understand that she has not yet told me what she has concluded.’
He turned to Maggie, who nodded her confirmation.
‘Before Maggie begins, do you have any questions?’
The room tightened, squeezed by need and impossibility.
‘The journalist, the one with Emily, he asked me, what stories shall we tell ourselves,’ I said. ‘What did he mean?’
I have many faults, they can be easily read in my story, but I’m not stupid. I watched the two of them squirming in their seats, preparing their lies.
‘Which of us are you asking?’ the doctor said.
‘You weren’t there,’ I pointed out. ‘But perhaps you can guess, as well as she can.’
They looked at each other.
‘I don’t know what he meant,’ Maggie said.
‘And if you were forced to guess?’ I asked.
‘Are you forcing me?’
‘I’m trying to.’
‘I honestly don’t know, Rene. I’m sorry.’ She looked at the doctor. He nodded.
‘It’s the same for me, unfortunately. I couldn’t speculate.’ He met my eye with a steady gaze.
I thought at the time, and I think this still, that he wasn’t trying to be evasive. He wasn’t trying to hurt me, but neither was he trying to protect me. Because, for him, I was a small part of a greater good, a necessary negative element in a far larger equation. My mistake was not in trusting him, but in neglecting to turn the question back to Maggie. With her admissions error, a crack had opened through which I could peer. And for all I didn’t know about her, I knew she wasn’t like him.
‘Is there anything else?’ Doctor Huxley asked.
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Then—’ he turned again to Maggie ‘—please deliver your findings.’
When she spoke it was not to me, but to the doctor. I was there simply to bear witness, experience myself rendered in the third person.
‘Rene’s relationship with his brother, though at times troubled, can be characterised as extremely close and caring. Although Rene exhibits a range of classic shock symptoms, there is no evidence that he is in denial. He has grasped the implications of the brain death of his brother, Theo. He has, throughout our interview, displayed a keen intelligence, and I have never doubted he has the confidence required to question or challenge any part of this process. Rene carries significant guilt regarding his brother’s accident, which in my opinion he is yet to properly process. Nevertheless, it is also my opinion that the unprocessed nature of this conflict does not constitute a compromised capacity for informed participation in this procedure.
‘The situation leading to Theo’s accident has also placed great stress on his other key relationship, and in this respect Rene can be categorised as being especially troubled. Against this, the manner of the interactions I witnessed between the two suggest that, even in these circumstances, Rene has not lost sight of the values that he cleaved to prior to the incident.
‘Rene is understandably troubled by the philosophical and psychological complexity of the proposed operation but this, in my opinion, would be true of anybody, and as such can have no bearing upon the issue of capacity.
‘And so,’ she paused, even though the conclusion was now clear, ‘it is my professional assessment that Rene is, at this time, capable of making the decision required of him.’
; Relief flooded through me, followed immediately by fear. The effect was disorientating, like being dragged backwards through a familiar dream. From the moment I first met Maggie, the barrier had appeared insurmountable. That I would want to do this, take my every memory, my self, and dump it on my brother’s body, was surely reason enough to find me of unfit mind. And yet the waters had parted, without fanfare or drama, as if there had never been any intention to do anything but find me sane. Unnamed possibilities jostled offstage, seeking out the raw nerve ends of my fear.
‘And have any considerations, be they personal or professional, beyond the clearly defined terms of your investigation, influenced you in this decision?’ the doctor intoned.
I realised the recording was still in progress. And that, as much as my being there, might have been why he had taken her into the corridor for their earlier conversation.
‘No, they have not.’
‘Thank you, Maggie.’
He turned to me, apparently uninterested in my reaction. ‘And now, young man, I will not insult you by explaining again how important, or complex, the decision ahead of you is. Nor am I able to advise you. You will be left alone now. You can press this button to call us back at any time, either to ask further questions, or to give your decision. At this point, it is not possible for you to speak with anybody else, and I must remind you that if, in the next ninety minutes, you are unable to reach a decision, then the window will have closed. In this instance, not to decide is to decide.’
They rose as one, her job completed, he not yet knowing if his skills would be called upon. Doctor Huxley held the door open, so that his body formed a shield between Maggie and me. Yet, remarkably, she managed to thwart him: a note, scribbled on a piece of paper no bigger than a thumbnail, too small to make any sound as it floated to the floor. Had I not been watching her arse as she walked away, I’d have never seen it fall.
Pen on paper, the timeless tradition. Three words, crammed tiny across the white space.
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