by Tina Shaw
I reached over and snaffled a grape. ‘So how long was I dead for?’
My mother gave one of her unhappy sniffles. ‘About a minute,’ she said. ‘Thank God I didn’t know about it until afterwards.’
‘A minute, wow. Maybe I’m a zombie now.’
She put the bag of grapes on the bed so I could pick at them. ‘Actually they weren’t sure whether you’d be all right when you woke up. You could’ve suffered some brain damage. Woken up as a vegetable.’
She had a great way of putting things sometimes. ‘What kind of vegetable?’ I wondered. ‘A radish, or a cauliflower?’
Mum cuffed my arm. ‘You’ve been a very lucky boy,’ she said firmly.
I guessed that might be a line I’d hear for the rest of my life. At least now I had a good chance of having a rest-of-my-life.
‘What are you grinning about?’ she asked
‘Oh, I don’t know …’ I popped a grape in my mouth. ‘Maybe that I’ve got a new, improved heart.’ The grape was very sweet and juicy. But there was something I didn’t feel so great about. I was thinking about Roxy’s dad, and Ryan, and how it had looked like they were going to kill him. ‘Is Leo …?’
‘He’s fine,’ Mum said, as if I was going to argue the point with her. ‘He’s got a couple of broken ribs, one helluva black eye, and he needed some stitches, but it’s nothing that won’t mend.’ She paused for a moment, as if she was planning on saying something more. ‘He’ll be by fairly soon to see you.’
I closed my eyes, feeling tired all of a sudden. Little coloured lights flashed behind my eyelids and once again I saw the scene outside Roxy’s house – and that empty, savage look on my brother’s face.
‘You must be tired, James,’ my mother said quietly. ‘I’ll leave you to rest for a bit.’
‘No, wait,’ I said, summoning up a smidgen of energy. ‘What about Ryan?’
She was standing at the end of the bed, her bag over her shoulder, looking down at me. One second there was a really sad look in her eyes, but then she blinked and it was replaced by something a lot harder. Something really flinty. Ryan, I could tell, was in a shit-load of trouble.
‘You’re not to worry about your brother,’ she said ominously, doing her Saruman impersonation. ‘He is being taken care of.’
‘Taken care of’ was what you’d call a euphemism. It was the kind of line you’d get in a movie like Billy Bathgate, where that mafia dude played by Dustin Hoffman tells another mafia dude to go take someone out. It was an unfortunate phrase coming from a woman who takes care of tiny defenceless babies.
But anyway, Ryan was being taken care of – by the police. They’d decided he needed a better direction in life, so he was having to go along to all these courses, like how to be a better person, and how to make woven baskets and garlic holders. Actually, I didn’t know what the courses were, but Mum said he was coming along. At least he was ashamed of what they did to Roxy’s dad that night, and he’d made a formal apology to Leo (helped along no doubt by the presence of Sergeant Grunt). She also said Ryan’d be swinging by the hospital soon with a great big brotherly bunch of grapes.
Take your time, bro. Right now, Ryan was the last person I wanted to see.
The other guy, Brent, had disappeared. The police thought he’d taken off up north, and maybe he was staying with an uncle. I didn’t really care either way. They could both roast in hell, for all I cared.
One thing about being in hospital: you sure didn’t get much rest. The next visitor who appeared was a huge bunch of flowers. No, really it was Leo. I’d never been given flowers before but I got a really warm feeling when he turned up behind that bouquet. There were sunflowers and big orange flowers, and some huge spiky green things (also flowers). They sure looked impressive.
‘Hi, James,’ said Leo. A sweet scent filled the air. ‘Thought they might brighten up your room.’ He put the flowers down on the bedside table, and I got a good look at his face.
‘Whoa,’ I gasped.
He gave a little cough. ‘Yep. I look like something the cat dragged in,’ he admitted.
‘More like brother of Frankenstein,’ jumped out of my mouth. ‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean …’
He gave a dry chuckle. ‘No, it’s all right. It is a bit dramatic-looking, I know.’ He touched a hand to his bandaged head then sat down next to my bed. ‘So how’ve they been treating you in here?’
‘Pretty good, you know.’
For a while he just sat there holding his hands. It was kind of embarrassing, so I didn’t say anything either. Finally I asked: ‘How’s Roxy?’
Leo glanced up with his bloodshot eyes, then nodded. ‘Yeah, she’s okay,’ he said. ‘She had to talk to the police. They wanted me to lay charges.’ He made a funny noise in his throat.
‘And what did you say?’ I was curious.
‘I couldn’t do that,’ he said quietly.
Yeah, I thought, that would’ve been a hard call.
‘How could I,’ he added, looking at his hands again, ‘when I was partly to blame?’
Then Leo cleared his throat: a sure sign something embarrassing was going to come next. ‘Look, James,’ he said, ‘I just want to thank you … for, you know, stepping in when you did.’
My face went hot. ‘No worries,’ I said, hoping he wasn’t going to belabour the point.
‘No, I mean it,’ he said, giving me a really staunch look. ‘If you hadn’t stepped in when you did …’ He cleared his throat again. Then he said some more stuff that I found hard to take on board. Big, important stuff. I looked at my hands. Now both of us were embarrassed. ‘Anyway – thanks, mate. And you with a bad heart like that, too. Your Mum’s told me all about it. There’s not many guys, in your position, who would’ve done the same thing.’
Then he stood up and held out his hand. We shook, real men. It was cool. Clint would’ve been proud of me.
‘Anyway, I’ll let you get some rest.’
Leo made for the door. Then he stopped, shoved his hands in his jeans pockets, and looked back at me.
‘I wanted Roxy to come too, but …’
I held my breath, afraid of what he might say next.
‘She isn’t quite ready yet.’ He ducked his chin. ‘But she’ll be along eventually,’ he added in a firm tone, ‘I promise you that.’ It sounded like a threat.
16
I never thought I’d feel so happy to see our old house, but there were tears pricking at my eyes as Mum turned the car into the drive. ‘All right, James?’
‘Yup,’ I said, hurriedly wiping at my eyes.
‘I’ve got your favourite meal planned for tonight: chicken casserole. Plenty of potatoes.’
‘Excellent.’ It was good to see her looking so pleased and relaxed. She came round to my door, wanting to help me out, but I waved her away. ‘I’ve only had a valve op, not a heart transplant,’ I joked.
She gave a little shrug, but stayed pretty close anyway. I made it up the driveway and into the house by myself, then into my room. Everything was just as I’d left it. A grin was plastered on my face: I was home, yeah. My old ticker had been rebooted. Maybe I even had a new life to look forward to.
‘I’ll make us a cup of tea, eh?’ Mum said, her eyes shining.
I nodded. ‘Yeah, thanks.’ A wave of dizziness eased through my brain. ‘And I might have a little lie-down.’
It was late afternoon when Ryan sidled into my room. He looked different somehow: younger and somewhat chastened. Certainly a change from cocky and up-himself. His glance was shifty as he stood in the doorway, hands shoved deep into his jeans pockets. I wasn’t that naive, however, to think he’d had a major personality change.
He took a step into the room and leaned his shoulder against the wall, as if he didn’t want to get too close, and lifted his chin. ‘How’s it feel?’ he asked. I knew he was talking about my chest.
I grinned. Mostly because I was feeling pretty good. ‘Not bad,’ I said. ‘Still beating.’
He ges
tured at his own chest. ‘It hurt?’
‘My zipper?’
He nodded.
‘Not too much. Well, a bit. I’m trying not to laugh though.’ I was a bit worried the thing would rip apart if I so much as took a deep breath. ‘It’s gonna make one helluva scar.’
‘Can I see?’
I unbuttoned my pj top and there it was under the clear plastic dressing. Ryan gave a low whistle.
‘She-ite,’ he breathed.
I grinned. It was nice to impress my cool brother with something. Even if it was with the world’s biggest scar.
Ryan came over and sat on the bed while I did up my pj top. He rubbed a hand through his hair. ‘They’ve got me practically under house arrest,’ he muttered, squinting at the windows.
‘Yeah?’ I said cautiously. I knew Mum had impounded his car keys; he must’ve been really feeling that one.
‘If I fart, somebody knows about it.’ He was shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe it. Poor Ryan. My heart bled for him. Not. But what he said next had me wondering about his sanity. ‘It’s not even like we hurt the guy that much … a couple of broken ribs.’
‘Jesus, Ryan. Listen to yourself, man.’
He blinked at me. The old blue-eyed boy. ‘What?’
‘What?’ I mimicked him. ‘You beat somebody up, Ryan.’ There was a pale heat burning behind my eyes. I hated my brother in that moment. He looked at me with hard eyes – so I knew he hadn’t changed.
‘He deserved it.’
‘Bullshit,’ I exploded. Then I remembered the big scar in my chest. I dropped my voice and gave him an icy look: ‘You sound like a dickhead,’ I said.
He shook his head again, as if he hadn’t heard right. Nobody called Ryan a dickhead. But I just had. ‘What did you just call me?’ he said in a low voice.
‘You heard me. You’ve been acting like a primo idiot. Grow up, for Christsake.’
His eyes narrowed, as if he was already calculating on where he was going to whack me, how to pay me back. Then his eyes strayed down to my chest. He didn’t say a word, but got off the bed and made for the door.
‘I’ll see you round,’ he muttered, with an edge. He was as cool as ever, but even I could tell that things had changed between us now.
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘later.’
The days crept by. Ajax had been over. So had Marlene, with some DVDs. A couple of other mates swung by with stuff from school. I was starting to think about school again, when one afternoon I got an unexpected visitor.
It was a long, quiet afternoon. Not much doing. I was starting to get restless, and had got out of my bed – gingerly, I must say, I didn’t want to overdo it – and was sitting in the chair by the window thinking about things, looking at the sun slanting across the floor. My heart was beating strong and regular – the metronome I thought I’d heard in the hospital – and it gave me a good calm feeling. I heard the front door creak open, and thought it must be Mum, coming back early from work.
But it was Roxy.
‘Hey,’ she said, over by the door.
‘Hey,’ I said, for want of anything better to say.
‘Is this, um, okay – my being here?’
I gave a shrug. ‘Sure.’
My feelings about Roxy were all mixed up now. Despite what had happened – what I’d witnessed that night – I still got a kick from the region of my heart. Or maybe it was lower down. As she stood there in her jeans and grey sweatshirt, Roxy’s gaze slid round the room like she was trying hard not to meet my eye. Part of me was a little bit glad that she’d gone out with Ryan instead of me. It seemed to me now, in my new wise state, that maybe they deserved each other.
‘I can’t stay long,’ she said, ‘I’m babysitting David.’ We both looked out the window. That bloody kid again (I still hadn’t forgiven him for making a fool of me). He was kicking a ball up and down our driveway.
Roxy shuffled further into the room. ‘I’m sorry about, you know, what happened,’ she muttered.
I looked out the window, honing my Clint Eastwood squint. ‘Did Leo make you come?’
‘No!’ She sounded genuinely surprised.
I could hear her coming further into the room, and then I could smell her scent, some kind of fruity perfume. The bed went cling-clang as she sat on the edge of it. I couldn’t help looking at her then. She seemed so small and unhappy, I wanted to give her a hug. She was still the most beautiful girl I knew.
‘Well, not really,’ she added. ‘He said it’d be a good idea, but I was the one who wanted to come, you know, to see how you were.’
There was a sad, hollow note in Roxy’s voice. For a moment I thought she might be bullshitting me. Her hair hung down around her face, and her bottom lip was sticking out. I noticed her fingernails were all bitten to the quick, and there was a smear of blue ink on the inside of her thumb, like she’d been writing with a leaky biro. Despite my resolution of hardening my heart against Roxy, I felt sorry for her. But I still had loads of questions about that night.
‘You were egging them on,’ I said quietly.
She looked at me, her eyes the silvery grey of acid-dyed denim. She blinked, hard, then tears fell out of her eyes. Oh Jeez, why did women keep crying on me? Didn’t they know guys don’t like it?
‘It was your idea, wasn’t it?’
She nodded, just the once.
‘But Roxy, he’s your father.’
‘I didn’t mean for it to go so far,’ she said in a really low voice. ‘I’d got so, I dunno, I’d lost it, I guess. All I could think of was how I wanted to get rid of him, get him out of my life, so I could be free … I know it was stupid, but all I could see was my hate. I wanted to teach him a lesson – show him what that felt like, to get hit, like he used to hit me sometimes. The guys said they’d do it for me.’
Later I’d find out that Roxy and her dad were going to counselling. It was hard to believe, but maybe he did have ‘anger management issues’, whatever that meant. And I thought back to that day in Scottie’s. What would you be prepared to do for a girl? I guess Ryan – macho, dumb old Ryan – wanted to prove himself the bigger man.
She wiped her hand across her eyes, and looked blindly at the floor. ‘It all just got away on us.’
I didn’t know what else to say. I looked at my hands, lying in my lap. Same old hands, same old bony knees underneath the trackpants. But somehow I felt really different. And it was more than the knowledge that I had a new aortic valve in my heart. What kind of more, I couldn’t say. Though maybe it was tied up with saving a guy’s life. That was what Leo said to me in the hospital: If you hadn’t stepped in when you did, James, I’m quite certain I would’ve died that night. It was a very brave thing you did. You saved my life, son. And when I looked at Roxy, I could still hear his voice.
She was waiting for me to say something. Maybe she wanted me to say it was all right, that she wasn’t such a bad person really. But I wasn’t going to tell her that. There was too much to think about. Anyway, who was I to pass judgement, one way or another?
‘How’s Leo?’ I asked.
She pushed her hair back and glanced up, a distracted look in her eye. ‘He’s okay,’ she said softly. ‘We’re …’ she paused, as if struggling to find the right words. ‘We’re talking,’ she said. Then she gave a small smile. ‘And Mum came back for the weekend. I’m going to stay with her in the holidays.’
‘That’s great, Roxy,’ I said.
‘Every day of my life …’ she whispered, ‘every day I wish I could take it back, what happened.’
We sat there a while without saying anything, while the day ticked along outside.
Then suddenly I was really tired. Doctor Brad said it’d be like that for a while. He also said it wouldn’t take long and I’d get my energy back, that pretty soon in fact I’d be back to normal – like before my heart went bad. I’d be able to do all the normal things I used to – hey, maybe I’d even do that bungy jump. Just for the hell of it.
‘
I’ve gotta lie down now, Roxy.’
‘Sure,’ she nodded, standing up. She walked slowly towards the door, then stopped. Her gaze, when she looked back, was unreadable. I had another sudden impulse to give her a hug. ‘James?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Can I come back and see you again?’
That wasn’t a hard one to answer, though it took me a moment to find my voice.
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘I’d like that.’
But still she didn’t seem to want to go. She ducked her chin, giving a secretive smile. ‘Is it true you died on the operating table?’
I was whisked back to that night – aeons ago, it seemed now – when I’d called her. ‘Yeah. Cool, eh?’
She giggled. ‘Did you see a big tunnel with a light down the end?’
‘Nah,’ I had to admit, ‘nothing like that.’
‘D’you remember anything at all about it?’
‘It was just really peaceful,’ I said, thinking back, ‘like I was chilling out.’
‘Chilling out,’ she spluttered.
She took off then. I heard the front door bang shut behind her. The sound of her rapid footsteps going down the concrete driveway, David in tow. And I had the feeling, call it intuition, that maybe one day – once we’d got past all this stuff about Leo, and my brother – that Roxy and I might end up being mates.
17
There’s a table set up on the dry grass underneath a huge, purple-flowered tree. Two people are at the table playing chess. The girl has long curly hair down her back, that glints in the sunlight. As I stroll across the lawn, I can’t help wondering what that hair smells like.
Call me sexist, but I haven’t met a girl yet who could play chess properly. They don’t seem to have that killer instinct. And even though I’ve heard about chicks who play chess at championship level, I still think that is just a myth to make guys feel bad.
I lean over the girl’s shoulder to see how the game is going. The guy looks up and gives me a wink. He looks oddly familiar. A bit like Ryan, I suppose – an older and nicer Ryan.