Missing Christopher

by Jayne Newling

  After several choruses, the lamp would light and the boys would ooh and ah. Magic.

  We lived in a small two-bedroom weatherboard cottage in Bilgola on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. Born close together, three under four, my sons slept in the same room on a triple bunk bed. Ben with Mickey Mouse on the top, Christopher with Bunny in the middle, and Nic with Clowny on the bottom. I’d tuck them all in, then sing a lullaby. It took forever to say goodnight, they fighting sleep, me not wanting to be alone. Phil, a wool buyer, was always home on weekends but away three out of four weeks. I missed him when the house was quiet, except when I had to write up my interviews, which I did while the boys slept.

  When Nic was born, Christopher, who was 21 months old, was jealous of the new, squishy, demanding lump. He patted him like a dog and would rock his cradle at a speed worthy of an Olympic rower. He was not impressed by the constant feeding and burping and would try to climb up onto my lap when I breastfed. Finding the space fully occupied by his huge four-and-a-half-kilo (ten pound) brother he would wriggle with a grunt to the spot on the couch next to me, but not before throwing a possessive leg over my knee.

  At bedtime after the nightly book-reading, song-singing rituals and when Phil was home, we would tippy-toe out of their room but we wouldn’t get to the door before Christopher called us back. He always wanted another kiss. I would softly pinch his cheeks while rubbing my nose against his.

  ‘Moochie, moochie,’ I’d say.

  ‘Moochie, moochie, Mama.’

  Only then would he turn his chubby little body to the wall, hugging Bunny around his face. We’d finally leave to the sound of him sucking his thumb while twirling Bunny’s silken tag around his ear.

  The next day we’d play in the park or at the beach. When Ben started preschool we’d all stand at the gate waving wild goodbyes. As he turned the corner, we’d all run in to give him one last hug. Christopher cried when it was his turn to go to school. It didn’t matter how many goodbyes, he always begged for another one. Nic was more assured. One goodbye and a wave of his hand was all he needed.

  They all went to the same primary school, a short walk from home. Ben was a big boy when he started and strode up the path without a backward glance. When it was Nic’s turn, he held on to his best friend Simon’s hand. But Christopher lingered as long as he could before letting go of my thumb and with a bowed head he’d trudge up the driveway, turning around every few seconds for one last look. I missed them, too. I was a canteen mother once a week so I could catch glimpses of them in the playground. I’d sneak treats out to them when the other duty mothers were occupied with meat pies or lolly bags. The boys would giggle conspiratorially then rush off to share their goodies with friends. Each term I alternated between their classrooms, taking groups for reading. I handed out lollies to our little group in a circle on the floor while the teachers deliberately turned a blind eye. I put a finger to my lips to silence their delight but there was always one, usually Ben, Christopher or Nic, who couldn’t control a snicker fit. I loved being in their classrooms but it was always hard to leave Christopher. He’d hug me tight around my waist and I’d bend down to kiss him.

  ‘Don’t go, Mama,’ he sniffled in my ear.

  ‘I’m just down the road, Cricket. What do you want me to make you for afternoon tea?’

  ‘Pikelets,’ he mumbled and reluctantly released me.

  I reassured him I’d be waiting at the gate for him in a few hours ‘with bells on’. I watched him through a secret window until he sat back down.

  Ben and Nic were so much more self-assured. When I left their classrooms they’d wave goodbye from a distance and to make them laugh, I’d walk outside, jump up and down in front of the window like a jack-in-the-box then press my nose and lips to the glass to contort my face. I’m sure Ben was embarrassed but Nic would press his face to mine until the teacher made him return to his desk.

  I would still hear his laughter as I walked down the driveway.

  In the afternoons, I’d wait for them at the gate and then we’d run home to make pikelets, smeared with apricot jam and piled high with whipped cream.

  On the weekends, Phil and I took them all to Little Nippers, where they’d run in races along the beach and learn to swim in the pool. When they got older they’d learn life-saving in the ocean. Ben and Christopher were competitive but Nic preferred to make the adults laugh by deliberately falling over, ingesting a mouthful of sand, or somersaulting instead of running to the finish line. He always came last and didn’t care. Ben usually came second to his much taller and stronger cousin Dan, but Christopher had to win and almost always did. When he lost, he berated himself. He wasn’t a bad sport; he just needed to win to feel good about himself, a trait we tried to subdue with no success.

  We eventually moved into a bigger house nearby in Bilgola where the boys, aged six, four and two, each had their own bedrooms. Christopher’s room was next to Nic’s and Ben’s was across the hallway. Christopher hated the dark but pretended he didn’t. At night, he wouldn’t go upstairs unless Nic went with him. He’d say, ‘Let’s go upstairs, Nic, I wanna show you something’, or ‘I have a surprise for you’.

  After a few nights Nic got tired of the fruitless rewards and refused to go with him. Christopher waited him out.

  To solve the problem we appealed to Nic’s humanity. Kindhearted to his core, he made a game of going up the stairs to bed so Christopher would not feel ashamed. With Nic’s approval, we moved his single bed into Christopher’s room and pushed them together. The beds took up the entire space. We could barely close the door.

  Three boys, so similar in looks, all blond and blue-eyed but so different in personality. Ben, the father figure, watchful, careful not to make mistakes. Christopher, the athlete, taking risks to perfect any given task. Nic, the intellect, wanting always to know why.

  We were in a park one day when four-year-old Christopher climbed to the top of the jungle gym. Ben stood at the bottom, shaking his finger, telling him to get down because he might fall and hurt himself; Nic was sitting by the bench collecting and counting gum nuts.

  Ben was serious, and sensible Christopher was a giggler who loved burping and farting. Nic was a practical joker who craved learning and making people laugh.

  As brothers they were always close but as they grew older they found like-minded friends to satisfy their individual personalities and endeavours.

  Ben found happiness on the water, sailing in a two-man dinghy, Christopher on the rugby field and Nic on stage.

  Ben continued to keep a big-brother eye on Christopher when they were together and Nic just made everybody laugh. Phil and I enjoyed and watched over all of them. Phil coached Christopher’s rugby team and I got involved with the school band of which all three were members. Ben, saxophone; Christopher, trumpet; and Nic, violin. That’s what families did. Happy, normal families.

  chapter 3

  The ambulance doors closed with a whoosh. The engine came to life and Phil and I backed away as it turned to make its way out of the car park. I wondered whether it went back to base or straight to the morgue. I used to work at the morgue in Glebe. I covered the coroner’s court for the Murdoch newspapers. I wrote stories about death and murder and one memorable case where a schizophrenic, who had discontinued his medication, cut off his landlady’s head in front of her five-year-old daughter because he thought she was a witch. He baked her head in the oven. He was sentenced to ‘Governor’s Pleasure’—a sentence where prisoners are detained for an indefinite period for a serious offence. Their cases are reviewed based on a successful insanity defence. This is carried out by a reviewing body which must be satisfied that there has been a significant change in the defendant’s attitude and behaviour. While serving his mandatory minimum period, the schizophrenic was forced to take his medication and was subsequently released. He was last seen pulling beers in rural New Zealand.

  Christopher’s friends drove to Mona Vale Hospital, assuming he was still alive. Phil and I t
rawled the car park looking for a tap.

  The surf club was locked and in the dark we couldn’t find a water source so we drove home. On the way Phil rang his parents and mine who called the rest of the family and close friends.

  We unlocked the front door and while Phil threw his mouth under the kitchen tap, I checked on Nic.

  The house was dark except for the red glow of the oven’s digital clock. It said 1:38. It was so quiet we could hear the anguish in each other’s shallow breathing. The lounge and kitchen suddenly lit up with an undulating glow as headlights came up and over the last bump of our driveway. People ran in, holding their chests, breathing heavily. Hands reached out to grope us. My parents were speechless.

  They had also lost a son; Jim died in a motorbike accident when he was twenty-three and Ben was just ten months old.

  Someone handed me a scotch. I was worried Nic would wake up. Oh God, how was I going to tell Nic? How was I going to get Ben home safely? I felt sick. I wanted to go to bed. Phil walked in and out of each room like a ghost. I couldn’t breathe. I was suffocating.

  I went outside. My ugg boots were covered in sand. Jack, who was still wet from the surf, came to sit with me. He was distraught.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, covering his teary face with his big hands.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ I said, putting my arms around his shoulders.

  We talked for a while but he was inconsolable and his parents took him home.

  It was about 2:30 a.m. when the police arrived. They led Phil and me into the lounge room and sat opposite us. They looked sad and weary as though they had just lost a child. The policewoman who put the bag over my face to stop me hyperventilating sat quietly while the others asked the questions. I found out later this was her first night on the job.

  ‘Was he on drugs?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Had he been drinking?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Was he at home with you tonight?’

  ‘No. We were at Nic’s play in North Sydney. Christopher had been at rugby training. I left some money for him to buy dinner. Jack said he had been at his house.’

  ‘How did you know he was at the beach?’

  ‘Jack called us. Just after 11:30.’

  The room whitened as though a fine blanket of fog had seeped in under the closed doors. Faces blurred and voices muffled. Hands hovered over me and I wanted to scream. I heard my father ask the police to go.

  ‘She’s in shock,’ he said.

  Eventually everyone went home and I had another scotch then fell asleep fully dressed on the couch. Someone took off my ugg boots and covered me with a blanket. I woke up an hour later just as the sun peaked over the horizon, throwing light on the cliff where Christopher’s friends had gathered to throw roses to the wind.

  By eight o’clock the house had filled again. Someone handed me a cup of tea. The phone rang incessantly and our best friend Daisy, a big bear of a man, fielded the calls. I locked myself in my bedroom to ring Christopher and Nic’s psychiatrist, Professor Gordon Parker. I needed his help—again. What would I say to Nic? His mental health was tenuous, he’d been diagnosed as suicidal, and I was petrified of losing another son. I blurted out what had happened the night before. Gordon was shocked. He asked to call me back and I could hear the distress in his voice. When he did a few minutes later, he went through what I should say to Nic methodically and kindly but I was terrified. I wanted to run a million miles away, for everyone to go home, to have yesterday back. Gordon came to our house later that day and talked to us all, especially Nic.

  It would be hours before Nic awakened as the four different medications he swallowed each day, including an antipsychotic, antidepressant and a mood stabiliser, turned him into a zombie.

  Phil rang Ben and asked him to come home because I had a bad migraine headache. Ben knew before he walked in the door—the driveway was choked with cars and friends and family milled about on the front deck. He sat next to me on the couch and put his head on my shoulder.

  ‘What happened?’

  I gave him broad details.

  ‘Was it suicide?’

  ‘We don’t know yet. He may have slipped.’

  ‘Why was he there?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I crushed him to me as two tears splattered onto my arm. My heart stopped beating. I knew how it felt to lose a brother. I knew Ben and Nic would never get over Christopher’s death. I knew their lives, like mine and Phil’s, would never be the same again.

  It was standing room only when Nic came down the stairs, wiping the sleep from his eyes.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he said.

  He looked at me, Phil and Ben then at the throng of friends and family. His mouth opened slightly as he screwed his eyes against the next moment of horror. I held onto him and hugged him hard. His body was rigid. Now he knew, too.

  ‘It’s Criddy!’

  I nodded. He slumped onto the couch and I barricaded him with my arms. He cried and cried and cried. When his body finally stilled, Daisy, who is over six foot tall and big enough to play front-row forward, which he did for twenty-five years, took hold of Nic’s hand and led him outside.

  The boys have always loved Daisy. He’s funny, kind and silly. He farts with a twenty-second practised restraint just to make them laugh. He rough-houses them but will also act as the father figure on the very rare occasion they think their father ‘sucks’.

  Flowers arrived, trays of sandwiches, cakes of every colour and flavour. Plates of food were shoved at me but I couldn’t eat. The house was a maelstrom of activity and noise. It was deafening. I wandered in a daze from room to room, in and out, back and forth, looking for my family. Phil was teary—someone handed him a beer. Ben was politely talking to family and friends then disappeared upstairs to ring his girlfriend Sarah, who was volunteering in Vietnam. I was relieved to hear she was coming home the next day to be with Ben.

  Nic was sitting on the edge of the fish pond, writing something on his forearm in black ink.

  ‘Who’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘You have to ring this number urgently.’

  ‘Who is Brendan?’

  ‘I don’t know. He said he was from the eye hospital.’

  ‘What does he want?’

  ‘Just ring him, Mum. He says before eleven or it’s too late.’

  I looked at Daisy’s watch which read 10:05. I couldn’t be bothered but then Nic handed me the phone and ordered me to dial the number.

  Brendan wanted Christopher’s corneas. A blind sixteen-year-old girl from the country had travelled by train through the night in the hope we would agree to the donation.

  When Christopher went for his driver’s licence the year before, he asked me if he should tick the donor box.

  ‘It’s up to you.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘I might as well. If I die I won’t be needing them.’

  As Christopher was under eighteen, I had to give my consent.

  Brendan said the young girl had been surgically prepped and there was a small window of time to operate. Apparently corneas were only viable within a twelve-hour period after death.

  I wanted to say yes but I worried what Christopher would look like without his eyes. What if he needed them again—in heaven—somewhere. Hearing my thoughts, Brendan said they used prosthetic eyes and I wouldn’t notice any difference. I said yes, handed the phone back to Daisy then vomited behind the bushes.

  Somewhere in rural New South Wales, a young girl would see the world for the first time; the brilliant reds of a king parrot, the dusty yellows of wheat, even the black of night with its daggers of electric stars. I didn’t know her name and she didn’t know mine but she would have my son’s eyes. His eyes were blue, metallic azure like the ocean before a storm.

  Somewhere in a dusty country town or on a landscaped farm, a young girl would open her eyes to see the new day. She would gaze into the mirr
or and gasp at a beauty she never quite believed. She’d stroke her smooth skin and style her hair the way she always imagined. She’d marvel at the earth’s colours, hug her mother and be able to see the love she’d only ever felt. She would dress herself in the shades she preferred, not what had been chosen for her. She now knew what purple looked like; and in time she would be able to see her son.

  Lunchtime. A steady stream of friends and family filled our home. The funeral director arrived armed with paperwork and albums of photographs showing coffins of every size and shape. Thankfully, Phil’s father Graham took over. Phil and I only had to choose a coffin; a wooden one with a gold cross because Christopher was religious. Phil’s mother Moya chose the hymns and readings because she and Christopher shared that bond and Phil’s brother Geoff, who owned a florist, ordered long-stemmed white roses. I wanted a cremation. I didn’t want bugs gnawing at his flesh. We decided to have a service for family and close friends only at the crematorium.

  The school wanted to hold a memorial service on the same day. A service sheet had to be made up. I asked Ben and Nic to take care of this, hoping to keep them busy.

  The day was almost over. It had shuffled along in fitful, murky increments. People were still arriving while others left. I couldn’t hug, talk, nod anymore. I had to be alone. Ben was in his room talking to Sarah on the phone and Nic had fallen asleep in a chair. I lifted him up and walked his sagging bulk to his room. He cried again as I tucked him under his doona. I held him and promised I would get him through this.

  ‘Wake me up if you need me, Nic.’

  He nodded, pulled Clowny to his neck then buried his face into his pillow.

  If you had asked me, the day before Cricket died, what I feared most, I would have said losing Nic. He’d been in and out of institutions and several times he had admitted to me he wanted to die.