‘I’m not alright. I can’t live without him. It’s so cruel. I can’t say goodbye to him again. You can’t make me. No one can make me.’
Ashleigh rummaged in her wallet and pulled out a purple business card bearing the name Penny, a metaphysical integrator.
I didn’t know what that was but Ashleigh made an appointment for me for the following week.
Tick, tock, tick, tock. My head a metronome in my grandfather clock
Pick, peck, pick, peck. The pigeon taps at a decomposing speck
Yes, no, yes, no. Let me go.
Tick, tock, tick, tock, the traveller’s clock
Suspended time, death time, mocking time
A thump, a drumstick in Satan’s orchestral pit
Bang. An execution. Still breathing, still beating. Tick, tock, tick, tock
On its face—faceless—the winders, the twisters, the dials Daggers in its back. Ha, hee, hee ha. It’s just a clock. Inanimate, but obdurate like a toddler
Then, as time passes, as time should, an inebriated teenager, the table, the
cold pavement outside a pub late on a Saturday night
Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock.
chapter 33
Penny had a mass of strawberry blonde, crinkled hair which she tried to contain with a large leather clasp on the top of her head. Wisps escaped around her lined face, softening her jawline, making her appear younger than her professed sixty years. She was lean but curvaceous, her large breasts visible underneath a sheer, white blouse. An auburn skirt, which flowed to her sandalled feet, completed the archetypal image of a spiritual woman. She smiled warmly as I tentatively stepped into her anteroom. She then led me into her consulting room which was dusky and warm. A shard of silver light shot through the window which was sheathed in burgundy silk. Like a pregnant woman, it filled and puffed at the whim of the harbour breeze. A massage table, covered with crisp cotton sheets, faced the panorama. I wanted to crawl between the layers and sleep forever.
Penny sat me at a small, round table covered in a batik cloth.
She sensed my nervousness and fear and patted me on the hand like a grandmother. She wanted to know why I was here.
‘Ashleigh made me.’
She smiled with a wrinkled brow then held my hand. She stared deeply into my eyes and I began to cry.
‘What happened to you?’ she whispered gently.
‘My son died.’
‘How?’
‘He killed himself.’
Her face puckered but she wasn’t shocked. She had probably heard this many times before.
I headlined the chapters of my agony and the clock sessions with Ashleigh which had left me confused and vulnerable.
‘He’s in limbo,’ she said with force.
‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s stuck in earth’s realm. He can’t move onto the next realm without a body. His soul is floating aimlessly.’
‘Why can’t he go?’ I sobbed, swiping my nose on the proffered tissue.
‘Because he needs you to let him go.’
I felt tricked. She sounded like Ashleigh. Had the two conspired?
‘I don’t want to,’ I mumbled to my chest.
Suddenly there was a loud rap in the corner of the ceiling. We both looked up.
‘What was that?’ I gasped, my heart thumping furiously.
‘I don’t know.’ She looked genuinely perplexed.
It sounded again, louder, then again and again and again. It sounded like a wooden hammer on a metal door.
‘What’s above this room?’ I asked.
‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing.’
Penny shook her head from side to side then smiled with just a hint of sympathy. She raised me with a hand to my elbow and shuffled me to the massage table.
‘Lie down, close your eyes and listen to my voice.’
Tears streamed down my face and I worried I’d ruin her pillowcase. My chest heaved, my heart cracked. She relaxed my mind with her soothing voice while her hands, without touching me, washed over my body. Little beads, pinpricks of energy, surged through her fingers into my body.
I’d never felt anything like it before. It was as though she had anaesthetised or drugged me. She hovered at the end of the table and I felt my feet getting hot. I sighed and gave in to it. I was weightless, felt lifeless as my body melted into the cool sheets, the only sound my sobs as I fought against what would come next.
‘Say goodbye now,’ she whispered.
I shook my head.
‘Say goodbye.’
I groaned, whined and shook my head, tears flying across my face.
‘Goodbye,’ she chanted encouragingly. ‘Goodbye, Christopher.’
I couldn’t open my mouth.
‘He’s here with us now,’ she said. ‘I can see him. He’s a six-year-old with bright blue eyes and blond hair.’
Oh God. No! My hands were shaking and I’d broken out into a sweat.
A breeze escaped the confines of the silk curtains and swept up my still body, raising the hairs on my arms and legs. In a hushed whisper Penny described Christopher, his demeanour, his soft, gentle personality, his fears, beliefs and insecurities. How could she have known all that?
‘He is here next to me. He is saying goodbye.’
No, Crick. Don’t go. Don’t go! I’m screaming in my head.
‘Say goodbye now,’ Penny said.
I couldn’t move my arms or open my eyes and mouth. I was glued, trapped to the bed. My hair was soaked with tears. My head was shaking wildly from side to side.
‘Say goodbye now.’
‘Don’t make me. Please don’t make me.’
‘Goodbye now. Say goodbye now.’
Goodbye, I whispered to myself. Goodbye, Crick. I love you. I’m sorry darling. I’m sorry for everything. No, wait. Come back. I didn’t mean it. I don’t want you to go. Don’t go, Crick.
Penny cleared her throat and the moment vanished. The room felt empty and cold, like waking up in an operating theatre. Minutes passed in silence. I finally opened my swollen eyes. I was exhausted, dazed and empty.
Penny was waiting for me at her batik table. She gazed at me then helped me to stand. She led me to a chair. I was so drained I could hardly walk.
‘Sit for a while,’ she said. ‘I’ll make us a pot of herbal tea.’
When I eventually gathered the strength to leave, I felt like I’d been raped. I stumbled down the stairs into the glaring sunlight. Phil was waiting for me across the road and ran to me when I appeared on the front step. I had a strong headache and I knew by his look of concern that I was deathly pale.
On the way home I told him Penny made me say goodbye to our son. He smiled sadly as he grabbed hold of my hand.
‘Don’t cry anymore, buddy,’ he said. ‘You’ll get a migraine.’
I laid my head back against the seat and closed my eyes. I couldn’t stop crying. I felt like I’d just lost another child.
From Christopher’s diary: February 10th, 2002
May the road rise to meet you, may the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, the rain fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again may God hold you in the palm of his hand.
IRISH BLESSING — ST PATRICK
chapter 34
Outside the poster shop next to Ashleigh’s building, a shell of a man looked at the world from a hideous angle. He was slumped in an automatic wheelchair. On his lap, and tied with chicken wire to the arm rests, was a rustic donation box which doubled as a security bar. His legs had atrophied into broken twigs, his hands clawed, one in a victory sign, the other pointed permanently to heaven. His tongue hung out of his lolling head which banged at intervals against the rim of the dirty sheepskin-lined chair. He was placed in front of the window, perhaps all day, until someone came to wheel him home. Marilyn Monroe was pouting behind him and John Wayne had a gun to the disabled man’s head.
I put a coin into the box and it jingled, reverberati
ng against all sides of the empty cavity. He didn’t notice and he didn’t smile. I ran up the stairs to Ashleigh’s room.
I told her about the session with Penny and how distressing it had been. Saying goodbye again to Christopher had been one of the hardest choices of my life. I knew I had to let him go but I did it for him, not for me. It was a decision I knew I’d regret forever.
But I was glad to be back in her room and back with the clock.
‘Is the man in the wheelchair always there?’ I asked her.
‘Mostly but not always in the same doorway.’
‘That could have been Cricket.’
She cocked her head.
‘One centimetre this way or that. He would have been a vegetable.’ ‘How do you feel about that?’
‘I’m very grateful. He would have hated being in that state. He lived for his sport, being active.’
‘He would have been alive, though.’
‘That’s not living.’
I watched the clock and Ashleigh pretended not to. As it made its way around to 11:30 we remained silent. 11:30. Tick, tock. I stopped breathing. Tick, tock, 11:31.
Ashleigh smiled kindly.
It was over. It would never stop again. Christopher was gone.
I left Ashleigh early. I drove home and fell, sobbing, into Nic’s arms.
‘It didn’t stop, Nic.’
‘It’s a good thing, Mum. He’s free now.’
The next week I was horrified to see the clock had disappeared.
‘Where is it!’ I demanded of Ashleigh.
‘It was old. I needed a new one.’
‘Where is it? Can I have it?’
She sighed, told me she thought about giving it to me but decided it wouldn’t have been right for me.
I sat down and sobbed. It was definitely over now. Behind her, on her filing cabinet, was a new clock, black, defiant and challenging.
‘So it was faulty?’ I challenged.
‘No. It was old, unreliable.’
‘Because it stopped at 11:30 every day?’
‘It never stopped during any of my other sessions. Only with you.’
‘It did stop all those times, right? I’m not imagining it, am I?’
She nodded wearily. ‘No, you’re not. Do you now believe Christopher is out there somewhere?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. I’m so confused that I can’t even think straight anymore.’
Ashleigh talked about energy and its power and gave me an insight into her spiritual beliefs. I wanted her world, her clear views.
How easy would it be if I believed, like she, that life continued on and on, that death shouldn’t be feared and our spiritual world was rich and inviting?
Twelve noon. I left wearing my armour of scepticism, albeit a little bruised and with a derisory snort at the new clock.
Ashleigh and I shared a few more sessions but with the elephant removed from the room, it felt hollow and lonely. We talked about everything but the clock. She asked me about Lisa and I asked about the kittens she’d recently rescued.
The following week I bought her two gifts which I gave to her at our last session. Once settled in her room, I handed them to her.
‘What are these for?’
‘To say thank you. This is my last session. I’m okay now.’
‘Normally I decide that.’
‘I know, I’m sorry, Ashleigh.’
She opened the first present, a necklace with a large, black stone, which I was told symbolised spiritual beliefs. The second one made her smile. It was a porcelain cat with a clock embedded in the centre.
She thanked me and I could tell she was sad.
‘I hope it doesn’t stop,’ I said.
We spent the hour talking strategy and coping mechanisms. At noon we stood together, she letting me know she would always be there if I needed her. I thanked her and walked out the door for the last time. I cried all the way home.
Ashleigh, the woman I had hoped would understand my strong desire not to live anymore, the only one I could talk to about my desperation, my deep, inconsolable grief. She, the one who taught me how to bear life, live life without the constant, daily desire to end it. Over the year we were together she showed me how to be a mother and a wife again and although I knew I had a long way to go, she gave me hope. I didn’t hate myself anymore because Ashleigh taught me how to love again.
She saved my life.
When the hours of Day are numbered
And the voices of the Night
Wake the better soul, that slumbered,
To a holy, calm delight;
Ere the evening lamps are lighted,
And, like phantoms grim and tall,
Shadows from the fitful firelight
Dance upon the parlour wall;
Then the forms of the departed
Enter at the open door;
The beloved, the true hearted,
Come to visit me once more;
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, ‘FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS’
chapter 35
In 2006, our Newport rental home was put on the market. We had to pack up again and move permanently to our Blackheath cottage. Nic was twenty, working part-time and didn’t want to move to the mountains. We found him a flat in the inner-city suburb of Newtown, and a flatmate, Charles, a close friend from school, moved in with him. We gave Charles our numbers and made him promise to call if Nic needed help.
We gave Nic and Ben most of our furniture, pots and dishes then hauled the remaining boxes to Blackheath. This would be our home and the first time Phil and I had lived alone together since the boys were born.
It was with a deep sigh that we settled into getting to know each other again. We still feared for Nic but we slowly learnt to let go and over the next year we were able to relax more and more, knowing he was happy and thriving. He got a full-time job with a computer company and travelled overseas.
I tried not to ring too often but I still needed to hear his voice regularly. From its cadence, I could tell his mind’s state; he could never pretend with me. There were times he needed our reassurance and we’d drive down to talk to him or take him to dinner and he’d often come to stay with us. But he had something to prove. He needed to be free, needed to show us he could go it alone. He wanted to make up for all the childhood years he missed. As he improved, Gordon lowered the dose of all of his medications and he started to lose weight and regain his confidence.
He had been living in Newtown for six months when I called to ask if he was okay.
‘I’m great. You never have to worry about me again. But I still need you, Mum. By the way how many tomatoes do I use in that soup recipe you gave me?’
‘A kilo. Don’t forget the tarragon.’
‘You and Dad should go overseas. You’ve always wanted to go to Ireland. You can do that now, you know.’
Every time I heard his contented voice, the fist of anxiety unfurled just a little bit more. Phil and I learnt to breathe, to sit, to dare to dream. For the first time in years our marriage became the focal point, not mental illness. Over time, living in that little old cottage, making fires, going to dinner and playing music again, we discovered we still loved each other. We were damaged but Phil offered me hope and although I wasn’t entirely convinced, I trusted him enough to grab hold of his coat tails.
Knowing this would be our home for many years, I built a more permanent garden for Christopher. Under the weeping branches of a pink rhododendron I made a circle with bush rocks and placed his urn on top of a mound of pebbles. Candles dotted the periphery and at night, the dew on the leaves shimmered and shook like darting fairies.
My bedroom, our bedroom, had a double bed, an old wardrobe which came with the house and two bedside tables. Under one of them I kept a CD player. When I used to sleep here alone, I’d turn it on before I got into bed. I only ever listened to one CD, Natural States by American composer and pianist David Lanz. I loved all the tracks but my favourite
was ‘Cristofori’s Dream’. I only played it when I was alone.
One night I woke to hear the music playing. In the morning the player was switched off at the wall.
‘Why did you play “Cristofori’s Dream” last night?’ I asked Phil.
‘I didn’t. I thought you had.’
chapter 36
Time. What did it do to me? Real time, day time, the excruciating beat of countless seconds as a smile fades or the monotonous minutes of a queue of ants creeping around the picnic blanket on a boot-less trek to nowhere.
Time. Strange time, ghostly time, clock time. What did it do to me? Frozen under the carapace of grief, it made me look; I breathed. It took my breath away. When a day was done I’d package my pain in a picnic basket and haul it all the way home.
Home where the heart peeled and goosebumps heralded another torturous night. But the dark was a cave where secrets gambolled then flaked before the break of day. Pulled out from under the bed, I am sprawled, naked and withered under the beating sun, crows feet glinting, squinting.
Time has twisted and misshapen me. I don’t remember who I was before time was just another day. I don’t see myself in time’s reflection and to others, I’m someone they used to know.
The surrealist painter Salvador Dali had an obsession with time, not real time, ghostly time. In dozens of his paintings, time melts, warps and distorts. Clocks are twisted out of shape as though squeezed at the waist by an invisible clutch, others drip from tables and over barren limbs in an arid desert.
Dali was Christopher’s favourite artist. Above his bed hung Dali’s Soft Watch At Moment Of First Explosion. It depicts the face of a stopwatch exploding. A fly is on the face and a moth, Dali’s symbol for death, lies next to it. Time is recorded, frozen in oil at 11:30.
part three
chapter 37
A year after Christopher’s death, I left the Northern Beaches and my family to rent a house in Leura for a few weeks. I packed a case of wine, my tracksuits and ugg boots. It was a small two-bedroom house overlooking a lush backyard, home to a well-fed ring-tailed possum and a pair of rosellas which I was instructed by the owner to feed each afternoon at four.
Missing Christopher Page 15