by Colin Marks
Dying With My Children
By Colin Marks
Copyright 2011 Colin Marks
Special thanks to Mark Mitchell for his fantastic editing, to Tanya Almeida and Allan Jardine for their support, and to Katherine for tolerating me. And finally, a big hug to Stan, my Cassandra.
I’m dying, and I’m content. My children are here with me.
I’ve never been much of a father. It was a role I neither sought or cherished. To me, my businesses were my children. I either gave birth to them or adopted them, I nurtured and cherished them, and had favourites that I’d spend more time with than others. Eventually most would triumphantly graduate from my tutelage though a minority would be discarded, cast out in shame to the orphanage. Businesses were my protégés: I was firm yet patient, demanding yet supportive. My children were tolerated inconveniences.
I’ve had my share of wives and certainly my collection of mistresses, both imposing their separate frustrations. The trophy wives effortlessly amass more diamonds than Amsterdam, whilst mistresses are great fun for a few months before they too turn into wives, proffering opinions and demands, becoming yet another tiresome matrimonial bosom. The one common interest the two do share is the desire to secure their finances by ‘expanding the family’. Unfortunately, both are far too fertile for a man of my age. I had my last son Jack when I was 65.
Having said all this, it’s therefore unsurprising then that I have 7 or 8 children. The uncertainty is due to my determination to refute the paternity of ‘Child X’ as the courts delicately christened her. The child may or may not have been mine, that I’m not contesting, but there’s no way either of them will get a coin out of me after ‘that incident’ with her mother. Fortuitously, neither mother or child have been in contact since the court’s judgement was passed so I consider that an episode from the past.
But today is special. Today is for my six children with me here in this room. It’s so good to see the children helping each other. Normally they battle over my estate. Six times my will has been contested by this shower and I’m not even dead yet. In any other context I’d embrace their cold determination, it would make me proud. Not however when it involves my money.
I look around the small room, watching their expressions one by one. The slow monotonous ping of the life support system is comforting, helping me to concentrate and focus, regulate my breathing. Very soothing. I’m slightly surprised by my calmness. I can feel my body relaxing. This isn’t unpleasant. Not at all what I was expecting.
Poor Janet is getting very distressed, sobbing, her eyes fixed on the life support machine, chanting ‘why why why’ to no-one in particular. She always was a delicate flower: beautiful but needing constant tending. She was tolerable until her early teens when she inherited her mother’s cold ruthlessness, bitches from hell the two of them. Still, I shouldn’t think like that now, no more spitefulness. I’ll be dead soon, a minute at most, then what will any of that matter?
I concede that my children’s resentment of me could be regarded as my failing. I understand the nurture/nature debate. I recognise children are the product of their environment, and between their mothers and I, that environment was absent of love. They rarely saw me during their infancy. I was concentrating my time on making more money, whilst their mothers concocted more ways of spending it. If we consider the nature argument, I'd admit that I look even more guilty; you don't amass my wealth without acquiring more skeletons than the local graveyard. I've done things, am doing things, that will certainly make Saint Peter shake his head in despair in a few short moments.
Those few thoughts however are the extent of my guilt, I don’t believe I’m innocent or should take all of the blame. If I was that bad, then surely all my children would be the same; they were all seeds from the same plant after all. But Cassandra has been a gem throughout. From the moment she could walk her priority was caring for others, she’d potter around looking for ways to help. She was never demanding, always patient, never quarrelled, leaving that to her siblings. She was the child that all fathers would want. I always looked forward to coming home from a trip, opening the door and seeing her running down the hall towards me even before I’d take my first step into the house. I’d toss her into the air, hearing her screams of laughter as we tried to get her closer and closer to the ceiling. Even that one time when her back made contact, she was laughing so hard that she forgot to cry.
Her mother, Claudette, in hindsight was perfect for me. She had no interest in my wealth and no cares about my foibles. She loved me, with genuine from-the-heart love, for who I was, not what I possessed. In her eyes, I could do no wrong. She had a grace that was the envy of women and a smile that would melt the meanest of hearts. She was perfect and she was mine. And here’s the kick. I’m powerful. I control people. I determine futures. I don’t seek contentment; I didn’t choose a three bedroom garaged house on a suburban estate. My mission has always been to want more, to fight for more and to get more. Was it that difficult then for Maria to seduce me away by offering the pretence of a challenge?
I’m finding it hard to concentrate now, I don’t think there's long left. Their voices are becoming muffled. I can hear my breathing resonating through my head, slow, shallow, oddly relaxed. My breath and the life support machine’s pings withering in agreement. I can hear Bertran asking if any one can use a defib he’d found mounted on the wall. He’s waving it around, trying to make sense of it. This could be fun, the incompetent imbecile wouldn't know which end of a screwdriver to tighten a bolt with. He's more likely to electrocute himself than save me.
I’m very glad I assembled the children today. I say children, they’re my children, but all entirely unaccomplished adults. I gave them the best education money can buy yet they struggled to get mediocre grades, they failed in any business role I injected them into and succeeded only in feverishly and thanklessly spending a fortune. As the cancer spread and even the morphine was unable to quell the pain, I tired of their scheming and bickering, their constant attempt to get increases in their allowances. They didn’t care for my comfort or recovery, emotionally I meant as much to them as the grouse they’ve shot. They plotted to divide up my empire to satisfy their financial needs. I’d had enough and decided to end it all.
Where was I? I’m deviating. I must stop being bitter, that’s not a good way to die. Yes. Cassandra, my beautiful Cassandra. She's not like the others, she’s been fantastic during my illness. She's visited often, and not just to cement her position in the will but because she truly wanted to, because she loves me as a daughter should. And do you know what else? She’s successful in her own right, she’s self-made in an industry that I have no influence over so there’s no charge of nepotism. She’s considered one of the greatest sculpture artists to have emerged in the past century. Her work adorns palaces, galleries and even one or two of my homes. Generally I can’t tolerate self-satisfying modern art, but her work has a classical beauty, an Hellenistic elegance that even Rodin struggled to portray.
Poor Janet, she’s turning hysterical now, eyes still glued to the life support machine, the blips diminishing, slowly creeping across the screen. Bless her. It is endearing seeing her cry; I can see the child in her face again. Bertran has given up on the defib, after all, he knows it won’t remove the drugs in my body, the poisons travelling to my heart. He was there those few minutes ago when the nurse tested the life support system, the healthy regular pings covertly obscuring the cancer destroying my body. After checking the injection port and laying out the syringe on a tray, I dismissed the nurse, asking her to wait at the far end of the house with the kitchen staff until one of the children came to find her. Without saying a word, she smiled kindly and nodded, acknowledging her understanding. The c
hildren were becoming suspicious, eying each other nervously but they parted, allowing the nurse passage to the door. As the door clicked shut and the nurses footsteps solemnly faded, they turned and faced me. Silence. Anticipation.
Did my heart ever know what love is? Does missing somebody, wanting to be with them, is that all that is described by love? For me, my passion was signing the deal, achieving a profit, turning a business around. But if love is that simple and uncluttered, then I’m certain I love Cassanda, I’m certain I do. When I thought about this moment over the past few months, the deed performed and me laying dying, she was the daughter I