Missing Christopher

by Jayne Newling

  Phil, Ben and Nic were worried about me but I needed to get away, to think, to be selfish, to find some reason to want to return. I felt trapped by my grief and Nic’s illness. My world had become a prison. I wanted to run from my life, to sever my relationships, to unshackle the ball and chain I lugged around with me. I wanted to be free of pity, of judgement, of guilt. Just for a while I wanted not to be the mother whose son committed suicide.

  In Leura I locked the door and closed the curtains and sat in a chair watching old videos. I only ever went out to sit on the deck to feed the birds.

  While I was in the Blue Mountains I decided this was where I wanted to be—here where no one knew me, where I could pretend that I was normal. Several months later I found Lavender Cottage in Blackheath.

  When I look back to that time in early 2004, I am haunted by the frightened, nervous and suicidal person I was. It is almost ten years ago and as I write this, the familiar pain of deep grief and not wanting to live another day floods back, leaving me with a physical ache and a surge of panic.

  I can also see now how living in Blackheath saved me, how bit by bit, day by day, tiny joys emboldened me to open the cell door, to take a chance, to breathe.

  The white-pebbled pathway which wound like a snake to the steps to my front door was bordered by a thick hedge of English lavender. The pungent lilac flowers arced on both sides, the perfume lingering on suit pants and hippy skirts long after strangers had come and gone. I loved being alone there.

  Often I’d stay under my feather quilt on cold mornings and I could hear footsteps just outside my bedroom window as pebbles were scuffed and resettled. I cringed at the insistent bang of the brass knocker. I didn’t have many visitors. It was usually the Jehovah’s Witnesses or my neighbour George. I would count to ten and wait for the thuds of retreat before I breathed again. Through the crack in the curtains I saw their disappointed backs and bent heads. Sometimes if I didn’t answer the door to George, he’d come around the back. The seventy-five-year-old scruffy, white bearded, irreverent rogue was fighting prostate cancer and wanted to keep busy. I didn’t want to get to know him and didn’t encourage him.

  He liked to fix things for me—the leg on my antique desk and a rusty door handle. When I was alone and a hairy spider snuck in from the cold, it was George who trapped it in a glass bottle. He asked me to help him fix our joint fence. I carried the posts, he nailed them back to shape.

  I felt guilty when I didn’t open the door for George but sometimes I couldn’t talk, laugh or pretend and that was what he wanted from me. He knew I was sad but not why. He knew I wanted to be left alone but didn’t think it right that I was. He was not afraid of dying and thought I was too young to feel the same.

  Somehow he knew I was biding my time, praying for an accident or a disease so I could die and no one would think that’s what I desired. He knew something terrible had happened to me.

  George brought me gifts for the garden, a plant, a rusty wagon wheel or an old broken chimney pot he lovingly glued back into shape.

  ‘Where do you want it?’ he asked as he lugged it up the path, swatting at the pesky lavender. ‘You’ve got to cut this shit back.’

  ‘It smells nice, George.’

  ‘Not if you’re a bloke it doesn’t. Anne will think I’m having an affair.’

  He guffawed, which made me smile, and rewarded, he bade me farewell with a doff of his peaked cap and a pull at the old olive-green jumper Anne knitted for him many decades earlier.

  At first it was a casual friendship and I knew if he found out about my life, he’d run away like so many of my friends and acquaintances who didn’t know what to say or how to help. It took many months but he finally wove his way into my heart. I didn’t understand it but I began to enjoy his quick visits. And, after a while, I noticed I didn’t have to pretend with him anymore. He was a welcome diversion, and sometimes he’d come in for coffee and we would talk about politics or his love for his grandchildren.

  ‘When my first grandchild was born, my daughter asked me what I wanted to be called—Grandpa or Pops? I said, Mr Macfarlane or George.’

  He held his belly and laughed.

  One day I walked him out and he stopped at the top of the balcony stairs.

  ‘Who is Christopher?’ He had seen the memorial garden.

  ‘My son.’

  He put his stubby hand with its dirt-encrusted nails onto my shoulder and bowed his head. When he looked at me again, his eyes were filled with tears. I told him what happened but asked that he keep it private.

  ‘I moved up here because no one knows about Christopher.

  Here, I’m not pitied or stared at. I’m treated normally. It’s important to me, George.’

  ‘I won’t tell a soul, except for Anne.’

  The next day he was around with another gift and to invite me on a day trip with him and Anne, lunch included. I thanked him but declined. He kept asking and would use any excuse to check up on me.

  One night I woke up to the sound of breaking glass. In the morning I noticed something missing on the wall. The iron candle-holder which housed five glass containers had only four. The fifth was shattered in pieces on the floorboards. How could that have happened? Each glass was lipped and held in place by a circular iron rim. The only way to remove the glasses was to lift them up and out of their holders.

  George came in and saw the mess. He shook his head. ‘That’s not possible,’ he said. ‘Think you’ve got a ghost. Could be old Frank. He died in this room. Did you know he’s buried under your maple? I bet it’s him. He didn’t like visitors.’

  We became firm friends over the years, especially when Phil and I moved to Blackheath permanently. But by February 2008, George’s cancer worsened. Unable to drive, he reluctantly allowed me to take him and Anne for his monthly tests at Nepean Hospital, about an hour away. I knew he must have been in terrible pain but he never complained to me. If I caught him grimacing, he’d pretend he had a splinter under his nail.

  George loved oysters. Often, Phil would stop at the Sydney Fish Markets on his way up on Friday after work and pick up two dozen for George.

  I knew George had deteriorated when he hadn’t come over for a few days. Anne said he was very ill and the family, his children and grandchildren were all coming to stay and say goodbye. He was sitting in a chair and smiled broadly when I went to sit next to him.

  ‘What’s going on, George?’

  ‘The bastard has finally got me.’

  Then he bent his lips to my ear and whispered, ‘Keep an eye on Anne.’

  ‘I will. What do you need?’

  ‘Oysters. A shit load.’

  I took him two dozen the following day then left him and Anne with their family.

  For several weeks their house was filled with relatives, nurses, carers, palliative volunteers and doctors. I yearned to see George but didn’t want to intrude on this sacred time. So I just left meals and trays of oysters at the door. Oysters would be the last meal he ate.

  Then on a cool day in March, I sat by his bed as he struggled to breathe. His eyes were slits, staring into the distance. I held his hand then told him about Christopher, the clock, the floodlight, the crickets.

  ‘I’m not a hundred per cent sure, George, but if you want to bypass hell, there may be something more to this life than death.

  Just in case, I’ve asked Christopher to help you. For once, you can’t answer back.’

  I don’t know if he heard me but he closed his eyes when I had finished and I felt the faintest flutter, like a butterfly’s wing, as my hand left his. I kissed him on his rugged cheek and thanked him for being such a caring friend.

  That night, George’s daughter Vicky came to tell us he had died.

  Phil and I sat on the deck and watched as George was carried into the hearse. As it drove by, I waved to him and cried a million tears.

  I missed him terribly. I didn’t think I would ever let anyone into my heart again. Those beginning years passed
in a blur where there was no hope, no dreams, just a panic and an interminable angst that I’d have to live every day waiting for life to end. It was George who dragged me out from the dark, made me laugh. George made me feel worthy and, without him, I felt a deep loneliness and sadness.

  I went back into my quiet, lonely world.

  I didn’t know it then, but it was because of George that the first seed of wanting to help the dying was planted. Five years later I would complete a palliative care course.

  Then, a few months after George died, Isla came into my life and, in a way, I was forced to be a mother again. I had a hair appointment when Erin, the salon’s owner, came in late with her distressed six-month-old daughter. Erin was distraught because she had clients waiting and Isla was too sick to be sent to day care. I didn’t know Erin very well and did not expect her to accept my offer to take Isla home for the afternoon so she could work, but she reluctantly agreed. I put Isla in a papoose and walked her home. She was coughing and snotting and pulling at her infected ears. I gave her some medicine and a bottle of warm milk. She fell asleep in my arms. I gently turned her around and lay down on the couch; she was swaddled in a blanket, her feverish body flat out on my chest.

  When she woke two hours later, she smiled up at me, blinked her eyes, then nestled back into the crook of my arm. I fell in love with her that instant.

  When Erin came to pick her up, I gave her back reluctantly. She thanked me and I offered to help whenever she needed it.

  That night she rang to ask if I could have her the next day as she was still sick. And with that, two days a week became routine.

  Phil, who was at first worried about me caring for a child, also fell in love with her. For two days our small lounge room was strewn with toys, blankets, nappies and a foldaway cot.

  Soon she was able to sit up, then she crawled and finally walked during the period we looked after her. I taught her how to say ‘birdie’ as we pointed to the rosellas and finches from the large side window. She patted me, kissed me and was happiest cradled in my lap. There were times when she was reluctant to leave me, as I was for her to go. She’d bury her head in my shoulder to avoid Erin or Brian’s outstretched arms. I knew this hurt Erin, especially, but

  I was secretly glad that Isla loved me and that they knew she was safe with us and trusted Phil and me to care for her. After about a year, she was old enough not to pick up every germ and went back to day care full-time.

  I had always called her Little Girl. When I went to visit her I’d yell out ‘Little Girl’ and open my arms out wide. She’d scream my name and run to me, throwing her now-hefty body at me and hugging me deeply. The first thing she’d say to us was, ‘Can I have a sleepover?’ She insisted on sleeping with me, banishing Phil to the spare room, and when I woke in the morning, a chubby little arm would be wrapped around my neck and two eyes staring lovingly into mine.

  Isla surprised me. She wasn’t meant to be a part of my life.

  I didn’t want the responsibility or the risk of loving someone again.

  But she loved me and made me love her back. Like an earthworm she wriggled her way into my heart, my soul, and taught me how to care again. She didn’t judge me or demand anything of me except love. She made me breathe again. With her smiles, her kisses, her unconditional love, she, like George, made me stop hating myself.

  Then Phil and I went overseas, to England, Ireland and Scotland.

  I was nervous and agitated being so far from home and was sick for most of the five weeks we were away. We were in the beautiful fishing port of Dingle in County Kerry, Ireland, and I was struggling to keep my food down. I felt so sorry for Phil who, having visited Ireland with Nic a few years before, was excited about showing me the country of my dreams. If I didn’t eat breakfast, I could manage day excursions. Phil wanted to try a famous seafood restaurant one night and I pretended I was able to go out. I ate a few bites slowly while Phil finished his meal. By the time we left, my stomach was cramping and Phil held on to me as we walked the two blocks to our bed-and-breakfast. It was a cool, dark night, the air filled with smells of fish and ocean. Street lamps lit the sidewalks on the unfamiliar street and, halfway home, one light suddenly went out. We both looked up. Without breaking stride, I talked to Christopher in my head.

  If that’s you, Cricket, make it turn back on after we pass.

  It did. Phil and I both stopped and stared up at the glowing bulb. I knew then that Phil had asked the same question of his son.

  I squeezed Phil’s hand; he smiled at me sadly then hugged me with a ferocity I hadn’t felt in many years. We stood there and cried into each other’s shoulders for the longest time.

  chapter 38

  We moved back to the Northern Beaches for a brief period in 2009. Phil missed the beach, his friends, especially Daisy, and the memories. We sold Blackheath to buy a house which had glimpses of the Pacific Ocean.

  Christopher would have loved living there as it was a short walk to a track which led to the rugby oval and across the road to Newport Beach.

  On the morning of August 29th, the seventh anniversary of Christopher’s death, a strong southerly wind rattled the windows and whipped up the ocean into a frenzy. Rain fell gently, like snowflakes, and from the covered deck it looked like heaven was crying.

  It was never sunny on this day. This day, every year, my head hurt, my heart was heavy and I had a deep clenching twist in my stomach.

  Ben and Sarah, who were married in May, rang to tell me to look in the Sydney Morning Herald in the memorial section. I didn’t want to. I waited. A cup of coffee, dishes, a pot of tea. Phil opened the paper. Looking straight at us, Christopher stared from my favourite photograph. Written underneath was: ‘22.10.1984 – 29.8.2002. You will never be forgotten and are always missed. Forever loved by the entire family. Your big brother, Ben.’

  Brave Ben, oldest son, protector. I laid my head in my arms and wept.

  Hours later Ben sauntered in with Sarah. He scanned my face to check my state then hugged me deeply. Nic followed behind, smiling while grabbing me in a bear hug. They hugged Phil then we settled down for a drink to Cricket.

  There were fewer people at the headland now; some rugby mates, Annabel, Mandy and Daisy and Trish.

  We stood, arms linked, and shouted out ‘to Cricket’ as we threw our red roses over the cliff. We sat on the grassy brink, all lost in our own thoughts and memories. The light went out. Even though it happened every year and we had come to expect it, we were still awestruck at these inexplicable happenings.

  Nic and I had been at lunch the week before and were returning to my car when he put a hand on my shoulder to stop me.

  ‘Don’t open the car door, Mum. There’s a bug on it.’

  He walked closer then turned to smile at me.

  ‘It’s a cricket.’

  He gently picked it up and placed it on a nearby tree.

  We were silent as we drove home from the headland that night.

  We were drained from the emotion this day always tugged out of us.

  Each year I prayed it would be different but it never got any easier.

  At home my sons sat on the couch. They were so handsome, so different. Ben, the moral conservative banker who railed against injustice; Nic, the inner-city alternate, tattooed, pierced and a part-time comedian who talked to parents, teachers and school children about mental illness and suicide prevention.

  I watched Ben and Nic whisper to each other and a deep feeling of pride suddenly stabbed me. But it was the pain of their missing middle brother which made me moan.

  They both jumped up to hold me and I let them. I crumbled in their arms like an old woman. For the first time in years I felt safe and I gave in to them. We sat on the couch with Phil and cried together.

  There was a feeling inside of me. Deeper than anger, louder than fear or grief, but I didn’t know what it was. Then Ben and Nic told me they loved me. I told them I loved them, too, but it sounded different, strange, as though the wo
rds had come from someone else.

  I didn’t recognise my voice; the words were full, soft and resonant.

  Then something inside me cracked. It felt like my ribs were being pried apart, my heart, my lungs, hot and agitated. My breathing was shallow and laboured. I looked into my sons’ watery blue eyes which were filled with warmth and kindness. I loved them so much it hurt. I always had but now I knew, for the first time since Christopher died, I loved them more than I hated myself.

  chapter 39

  In July 2012, Nic turned twenty-six. All he wanted for his birthday was for Phil and me to top up his savings so he could get another tattoo—this one on his right bicep. It took eight hours for the indelible ink to stain his skin and another two hours a week later for the touch-up. He came to visit us after his arm had healed and, with pride, lifted his shirt to reveal an exact image of his brother—Criddy.

  On the tenth anniversary one month later, he showed it off to a room full of Christopher’s mates who had gathered in a pub in Manly. They all agreed it was beautiful.

  For Nic the tattoo is a way to keep the brother he sometimes has trouble remembering close to him forever. It is also a symbol of how much he loved and was proud of him.

  Nic lost his childhood and many of his memories to bipolar.

  The illness also took away some of his future; he will never be a vet. In almost every way, he is now living those lost years. I still fear for him but not in the anxious way of the past. He has many eyes watching over him. Professor Parker, a psychologist, the staff in the local coffee shops, Ben and Sarah, his friends and Christopher’s friends. Everyone is protective of Nic—everyone knows about Nic’s illness. He has never tried to hide it and has never been ashamed of it. His honesty has been rewarded with love, understanding and a desire to help from all who care for him.