Water Under Water

by Peter Rix

  He took it as a good sign. Easier, too, on a morning like that for him to contemplate the next few days. He’d been a surfer all his life, but rafting was new to him. The group leaders had assured him the section they’d be on was just a gentle drift. They could easily manage on their own, but it was always nice to have a parent along. Still, all that way for a few hours on the river before heading back. To what end? He knew the answer, though; Fran’s goodbye kiss that morning had been quite specific. I do love you, safe driving, remember your promise.

  He’d had a late session in the office the previous night so skipped his early-morning surf to catch up on some sleep before heading back into the city – a breakfast management-committee meeting followed by two hours on the phone. The firm was consulting to one of the country’s big property developers, a project to convert two hundred acres of Queensland river flats into a luxury holiday resort and conference centre. Jim’s boss had fronted the roadshow presentations to the various politicians and bureaucrats who had to be won over. That was the chairman’s greatest skill, building the vision with aerial photos and scale models, neat Monopoly buildings and impossibly green country-club expanses, the entire complex neatly arranged around the artificial lake, just waiting there as blue as a promise.

  But when it came to hammering out heads of agreement and final contracts, the baton was passed to his right-hand man, Jim for the Job – the chairman had years before conferred the unofficial title. In the consulting business, you were either a finder or a grinder, and when the firm needed someone to hold the line, to drag recalcitrant players to the table and nail their feet to the floor, Jim Campion was the man.

  The two hours of phone calls were to lock in agreements reached through the previous night’s long session. It had been one of those nights, the two opposing teams of negotiators exhausted yet intractable after eight hours of bitter disagreement. They had come so far yet still faced the real prospect of having to slink back to their respective tribes like failed hunters, empty-handed. Jim saw it on their faces, bereft of ideas or hope yet perversely squared off across the divide as if not just the deal but they themselves were beyond redemption. He knew that look well, and, too, the almost surreal late-night moment when it could only go one of two ways, and which, without his presence, would most likely take the small step to disintegration. Equally spent as they were, he forced himself to stay alert for the right time to intercede between the factions: a break in hostilities, someone making an attempt at a joke or smiling without design or walking to the window to stretch and yawn and peer out at the city night.

  When the moment came, he was ready to pour coffee and suggest the compromise he’d been holding back for just this moment, a suggestion that appeared suddenly new to them or at least somehow different to those many, many they had previously rejected out of hand. Jim for the Job. He was ready also when, as if by signal, there came not just that first change of mood but a sweeping tide of renewed spirit, a rush to join together, an almost undignified scramble towards agreement. He retyped the succinct paragraphs himself, proffered Montblanc pens with a reassuring touch to an elbow or squeeze of a shoulder. Each of them was sure he was on their side, and they thanked him warmly. And why not? At the eleventh hour – later, well past midnight, actually – he had offered them nothing less than salvation.

  The next morning, the recuperative calls made, he stood at those same windows gazing out from the forty-first floor at the sharp-edged world below him, the harbour city under polished glass. He leant for a moment against the tinted pane. It had taken a toll, but it was a good night’s work. The chairman, at the breakfast meeting: I taught you well, didn’t I? Yes, he had, and Jim had always been grateful.

  It was a mystery to Fran. How can you be so good at that stuff and not have a clue with your own son?

  Which is why it was not the chairman’s words he recalled but his father’s as he stood contemplating the day ahead.

  It is man’s nature to test the limits of his estrangement, Jimmy, his father had said in his quiet, considered voice. We need to stand at the abyss, eyes closed, to actually feel the edge with our toes before stepping back. All right, we say, now I know.

  Jim could see his father delivering the homily, but when was it, and why? A long time ago, something to do with Tom. The years after the boy’s arrival were almost blank in his memory. No, not blank, the opposite, filled to overload so that they just felt empty. It was as if on that morning nineteen years ago he’d plunged into a long tunnel and only emerged after years of darkness and confusion. Or never had.

  He cleared his desk, and his mind – dangerous to drive distracted. He needed to put aside, for now, that Fran seemed to be seeing this trip as some kind of last chance. He was back on the Harbour Bridge at one-thirty, right on time. His eyes went to the climbers. He and Tom had made the climb, three or four years before, stripped of watch, wallet and mobile, head to foot in those boiler suits, herded along by some bored backpacker. Tom had loved it.

  It was a seventeen-kilometre crawl from the bridge to the northbound F3. There were several routes, but he took the worst of them, the Pacific Highway exit, winding up through North Sydney and Crows Nest. This way almost guaranteed a stop at the lights outside Royal North Shore Hospital. His eye went to the wing mirror as an ambulance, siren on, cut across the line of traffic and powered up the entrance roadway. He sat there, waiting. The lights seemed to be stuck on red. Come on, come on, let’s go.

  He had often tested himself driving past the place where Tom was born, conscious of it as he crossed the bridge, the awful attraction of a scab never quite healed. And now the red lights gave him ample opportunity to anticipate the fingernail that would finally bite into living flesh. He adjusted the air-con, checked the CDs in the stack – Fran’s opera and classical.

  Moving finally. Jim tried the radio for a while then just let the mood wash over him. Not even clear of Sydney and Tom was buzzing around the car like a trapped blowfly.

  The afternoon traffic stop-started past familiar locations – solid houses on large, leafy blocks, good schools, parks and sports fields. Perfect for bringing up kids. He waited at another set of lights outside a church – ageing sandstone, neat gardens, confident billboard: Wherever You’re Heading, God Is Already There. The Japanese sushi restaurant had a For Lease sign on the window. They’d eaten there once; it was never going to last. That restaurant, that house, that school, that corner where James came off his skateboard, they came at Jim like photographs in an estate agent’s window, suburban icons stripped of life, the boys’ lives, his and Fran’s.

  A woman walking past the entrance to the library looked familiar. Her son – Angus? No, Marcus – was James’s best friend for a while. Jim had hated how, after Tom was born, he kept running into people who hadn’t heard. She was one of them, six weeks after Fran had come home from hospital. He’d given her the news, then it seemed like it was his duty to console her. And to assuage her guilt for not knowing. She was up to it, though – hardly listened before topping the news with some tragic story of her own.

  How brave you are, she’d offered as a parting shot.

  Yes, they were brave back then. Or naive. What if they’d listened to Dr Parkes?

  Dr Parkes was a kind man; maybe it went with being a paediatrician. He’d changed his ward round so they could be his first call on the Monday after Tom’s birth.

  Look, these things are best done quickly. The longer the delay, the harder it gets to make a sensible decision.

  Fran was exhausted. These … things?

  Dr Parkes perched on the edge of a chair in a quiet room off the maternity ward, Fran facing him in another chair. Jim propped himself against the wall. The strain showed on their faces – two nights without sleep.

  You’ve had some really bad luck. I know how distressing this is, Dr Parkes said, his voice full of professional compassion. But let’s keep it in perspective. You have a fine boy at home to think of. Other children to come – I’m sure we al
l hope for that. Perhaps it is time to move on.

  Fran, on alert then. Move on?

  Dr Parkes was a big, heavy man – Jumbo was the nickname whispered around the ward corridors – and a sigh collapsed his body around the chair like he was deflating.

  These Down Syndrome children, Mrs Campion, there’s never much quality of life. Parents think they’re doing the right thing, but I’ve seen it often. Lots of time and effort, heartache, for not much result. Such a shame, plus it can really cost the siblings. I’ve seen families broken apart.

  The doctor offered them his understanding smile. You know, there are some very good places these days.

  They still didn’t catch on. The big man rummaged in a coat pocket. Look, I have a list. You could make a few visits.

  Fran was on her feet. Institutions? This is nineteen-eighty! Anyway, he’s our son.

  But Jumbo held out the sheet, and Jim took it. We asked for advice, Fran. Everyone says Jum … Dr Parkes is the best in the field of retarded children.

  Jim, no!

  It was like she’d struck him.

  Babe, all I’m saying is we have to look at the options.

  It was a betrayal, but he could not help sucking in the doctor’s words like oxygen. It was like when you’ve gone under the third or fourth wave and the sets have churned the sand so you’re not even sure which way is up and it’s been a minute, then two, and you’re trying to hold back the panic and then there’s the light above you and you burst free and you’re fine. You’re fine.

  A betrayal – he did not need to look at her face to know – the first in all their years together. For the rest of that day, as they exchanged the small contacts they’d been relying on since the baby’s birth, each look, each touch was forced to run the gauntlet.

  The truth was he had never really escaped the tiny, windowless room where Dr Chatfield had given him the news. And now here was a hint of reprieve. Even the weather supported his case. The day of the birth and the next two were beautiful, the sea breeze slipping in each morning just as the heat threatened. A weekend like hundreds they had known, yet that’s what made it so unreal. Jim walked, drove, ate in familiar places that were suddenly foreign, talked with familiar people – family, friends, colleagues – who he saw were as desperate to make contact as he was, desperate to offer something, anything, and yet he could barely bring himself to acknowledge them. He stared without embarrassment at real strangers, people who passed by in corridors, who sat at the next table in the hospital cafeteria, people who drank coffee, who read newspaper articles about the Russians fighting in Afghanistan. He was a stranger to himself as well, a vaguely familiar but not-quite-focused image in a Super 8 home movie, the film jumping sprockets, too, as if everything around him, his life itself, had been thrown out of sync. And now this expert was saying that they, Jim and Fran, nice people, could return to their lives, go home to James, their boy who needed them.

  Jim, Fran, don’t make a decision right away, Dr Parkes said. Take a few days, look over some of the homes, leave baby in the hospital – I’ll arrange that. I’d advise against taking him home now. Just in case.

  They ventured up the winding mountain road on the Wednesday. It was a familiar drive – for Sunday bushwalks, tennis weekends – but midweek added to the sense of being on display. Surely it must have shown on their faces? It was a relief to be away from the hospital, though. Jim got them there early. In the village, they wandered past the gift shops, had morning tea in the little cafe that was once the post office. Just another tourist couple. Finally, they could put it off no longer.

  Fairview House sat in a quiet Blue Mountains street with plenty of land to hide the home from its neighbours. The name had a nice ring to it, and if the gardens were overgrown they’d retained their style. Fran knew a bit about landscape design. Sorensen, she thought. They made their way along the gravel path to the house, pausing for a few minutes outside to get their bearings, avoiding each other’s eyes, long, slow breaths, taking in the heavy scents of sawn timber and cut grass. To a casual observer, they might have been admiring the gardens: unkempt azaleas, sandstone steps cut into sloping banks, easy access to the terraced lawns set off by mature oaks and elms. At their bases, iron-framed garden seats with hardwood slats faced away from the house. Other outdoor benches and chairs were positioned discreetly – one behind a low hedge, another screened by a garden shed. The house sat on stone foundations, timber cladding above – showing signs now of dry rot – broad, sweeping verandas on three sides, several crumbling chimneys. It was probably some merchant baron’s mountain retreat in the old days – happy family holidays to escape the summer heat. It would have been a real journey back then, before the highway.

  An easier trip now. Jim had studied the brochure: a comfortable ninety-minute drive from Sydney. For visits? A walk in the garden, a picnic on the seats beneath the trees, away from others. How often? Not every weekend. Once a month? What would be a reasonable frequency to visit the … what would you call them? Inmates? Patients?

  Your son.

  He rang the doorbell. Those trees will be spectacular in autumn, Fran.

  The foyer must have impressed weekend guests in the old days. It was just dark now – flaking, high ceilings, oak panelling cracked and dulled, light fittings fashioned as seashells, yellowing. A straight-backed, middle-aged woman greeted them, a clinical crispness in both her voice and her uniform.

  Good morning and welcome to Fairview. Let me show you a resident’s bedroom first.

  Residents.

  She led the way along a narrow, unlit hall. They marched in single file past the roll call of name tags on the doors – neat calligraphy, some new, others dog-eared and fly-specked, one or two scribbled in biro as if the length of stay were uncertain. Jim’s nose was assaulted by sudden whiffs of something medicinal that seemed to seep from under the closed doors. How far were they going? Matron must have done this before – always show the best room first.

  In fact, behind each of these doors was someone Matron Tasker cared for with a passion, members of her family for the very reason that another family had discarded them. That was how she saw it. She could just abide the parents who paid their monthly visits but had nothing but contempt for those who came once, left their son or daughter and never returned. Well, she knew how to give them one good jolt of reality before they disappeared back into their protected lives. Matron did know what to show first. She opened the very last door. Was it any different to those they had passed? Dusty sunlight shafted through a huge bay window.

  Jim hung back then shaded his eyes at the room’s entrance. Ah, there was the garden outside with a nice outlook; it was only the corridor that had created the sense of dark secrets. He stepped over the threshold to the lush green foliage and improbable yellow flowers of patterned wallpaper, peeling away in places as if conscious of its incongruity in the gloomy old house. So? An empty room. Was the matron suggesting this for them? A brown wardrobe stood in one corner, the half-open door revealing a striped pyjama jacket on a single hanger. The previous occupant had … moved? There was nothing on the white melamine top of the little desk. Bare walls. No signs of occupation. What a contrast to James’s room, with its noticeboard of playgroup snapshots and hand-paintings, its scattered proof of books and toys, each left just where it had lost its relevance to the moment.

  Come on, James, help me tidy your room, then we can go to the beach.

  This room? Surely they could fill it with whatever a child like this might need? New wallpaper, freshen up the paintwork? Jim could slip up for a couple of weekends to lend a hand. Yes, why not? The bed stood on the far side of the room beyond the band of light. On the bedside table was a single bottle of pills. Matron Tasker had moved aside to let them survey the room. Now she passed through the sunlight and beckoned. And then he saw.

  Jim must have cried out. Matron turned her glare on him then perhaps accepted her part in it. On the starched white pillow lay a detached, staring head. Not a head �
� this could not possibly be a head, this prop for a horror movie. It was more like a fantastic papier mâché mask, a head to be worn over a head. Massive, at least twice the normal size. Jim saw, had no choice but to close his eyes, then forced himself to look again. It was as if the boy’s face had been stripped from a regular head then stretched and stretched, pulled tight around another huge skull, every feature – eyes, nose, mouth, ears – horribly deformed, parodies for a monster head, a head for a street parade, a head to have young children squealing in fright. Matron smoothed the single sheet that covered the figure in the bed.

  Look, Simon, we have some more visitors.

  There was a figure; Jim saw that now. But how could a body be so undetectable? The raised impression seemed no more than the sheet settling as the bed was carelessly made.

  Say hello to Mr and Mrs Campion.

  The head moved fractionally, the mouth working hard to produce a watery gurgle.

  Simon, nice to meet …

  But Jim wasn’t up to it. He turned away to hide the embarrassment, the shame.

  Matron asked them, Would you like to see some other rooms? Not all our residents have as many problems as Simon.

  Yes, now I’m here, Fran said, I would like to meet some of the others.

  They were well down the mountain again before Jim could speak of it. I’m sorry, Fran. I had no idea there were places like that.

  Fuck it, Jimmy, it’s not about the place!

  He did not need to turn his head to know the expression on her face. She only ever swore when it really mattered. It was more than exhaustion. She was sick of his searching for a solution, as if this were just another deal to be negotiated, as if somehow he might yet find a way out of this. They hit the afternoon traffic: mothers collecting children from school, delivery trucks, retired couples enjoying a day’s outing without the weekend crowds. Everything in place. Normal. Except him. If he could just have an explanation, a rationale, some kind of justification for what was happening to them.