Amelia twists and flexes her hands, watches a spot near her feet, maybe counts the scuff marks on the lino.
Milo watches another spot nearby. Once he looks up quickly, hopefully — then bows his head again.
Otis stares at me, perhaps resentful, perhaps bored — I am uncertain.
‘Well,’ I say eventually, ‘that’s me done. Anyone else want to say anything?’
Silence. Loooonnnnng pause for reflection.
Milo shrugs, seemingly uninterested.
Otis looks around for support then asks, ‘Does this mean you’re coming to the cemetery with us on Saturday?’ And instantly I see old sun-dried clumps of grass, cold stones splashed with moss and dribbles of lichen, rust-lines splitting the gold lettering. I see gnarled trees, a blanched sky, a lone crow glaring beadily at the middle of the graveyard where there is a hummock of freshly turned earth. Then, as if the soil has settled to shape, I see the long, thin outline of a woman, my woman, prone, stretched, as still and soundless as a fish laid out at market.
You bastards can bury her if you like. I never will.
‘No … no,’ I stammer. ‘I — just … I can’t.’
And so, as if it had never existed, our family meeting is concluded.
But I persist because, as Stu says, I have to. I supplant Amelia — a bloodless coup, the offer of more painting time for her — and begin to read the children stories again. We lie on the floor and wait for the lorikeets outside to stop squarking then I read about talking tortoises and a planet called Xenon where huge, tubular, epiphytic plants are sucking the seas dry. I read about laser battles between Gul-Ge-Don the Merciless and Princess Watimi — beautiful, bejewelled, aided by a deadly sorceress. I swim in and out of the worlds of Harry Potter, Deltora Quest and Animorphs. We laugh at the antics of Rave the Rambunctious Rocketman and worry when the FuFutons — tiny creatures from an underground city — are threatened by encroaching iron-ore mines. We gasp as Helic defeats Jull in the famed War of Twenty Eons, are mesmerised by Charlotte’s Web, wonder if we could ever fly to Never-Never Land with Peter and Wendy. And slowly, after some initial hesitation, I find the children warming to me, moving closer, asking for more stories, briefly offering a telling hug. It is as if we are re-learning about ourselves and each other, refocusing our lives together through this saturation of stories.
Then, late one evening as we sip cocoa before bed, the question finally arrives.
‘Where’s Mum?’ Otis asks.
‘In Heaven, idiot.’ Milo looks away, reaches for another Tim-tam.
‘Is she?’ Otis turns to me. ‘Dad? Is Mum in Heaven?’
I consider. Heaven, Hell, Nirvana, Elysium, Reincarnation —it’s my opinion that the after-life is confused by a myriad of mumbo-jumbo theories, all designed to hide the starkness of the real cycle. We die, they lament, we decompose, they drink toasts, we add nutrients to the earth, they forget. Plain, unencumbered actuality.
So, is this the truth that I tell my children? Is this what I want them to believe, what I want to believe about Kaz?
‘Dad?’ Otis has shifted onto her elbows. ‘Is Mum in Heaven?’
Years ago, Kaz wanted the farmhouse because she knew that it would always be privy to space and a clear, resonant light. Even in a darkened hemisphere, she reasoned, we would remain free of oppression and enclosure.
‘Heaven?’ I raise my eyebrows, smile encouragement. ‘Well, she could be. And that would be fine. Though personally, I think she’s somewhere better than that.’
Now they are both gazing at me, drilling hard for a truth, any truth.
‘Where?’ This from Milo — he sounds suspicious.
Maybe for dramatic effect, maybe just to usher the universe inside, I swish open the curtains.
‘Where?’ demands Otis.
‘She’s amongst the stars,’ I tell them. Then, pointing vaguely: ‘Somewhere up there.’
They are still, reflective.
‘See, the stars are like a huge ceiling.’ I open a window, relish the calming gush of a cool dry breeze. ‘A huge ceiling on top of the world. Every time someone dies, a new star goes onto the ceiling, finds a place among friends, becomes part of a group.’
‘I can’t remember … what do you call a group of stars?’
‘A consolation, dumbo.’
I grin then continue. ‘All of the stars — and there’s many more than we can see, even with the most powerful telescope — watch over us, all of the time, to make sure we’re doing okay’
Milo is nine years old, his sister a year younger. They are intelligent children; they know about evergreen and deciduous, about carnivores and plant-eaters, the poles and the equator. They know that water is a good electrical conductor, that Cook sailed in the Endeavour, that a rhombus has four sides and sultans marry sultanas. I think they probably know about galaxies, solar systems and planets. They may even have heard of cosmic dust, gas clouds, gravitational pressures, the shock waves of a supernova. Their world is a curious cocktail of imaginative froth and scientific data — the poetic swimming alongside nature.
Which begs the question: have I embarked upon a puerile fantasy — an astronomical lie — or does this, our adopted version of what might happen, constitute a truth in itself?
Let the children decide.
‘So,’ Milo is peering upwards. ‘Which star is Mum?’
Otis points.
‘Maybe … the biggest? Look, over there. Is she that one?’
I take their hands in mine.
‘No — how about that one? Not the biggest but the brightest. Bright is more important than big in star language. And new stars shine brighter than any others.’
‘There’s another bright one over there’
‘And another —’
‘Look — see how it’s all shivery. Like candle-flame when the wind blows.’
So we stay by the window, count stars, identify patterns — Ursa Minor, Ursa Major — find those that are bright and flickering, give some names, create a family above us. And it is long past midnight when I escort the children to their bedroom, pull their doonas up (Star Wars for Milo, Rocky Bullwinkle for Otis), return their buffed kisses goodnight. It is later still when I drop onto my threadbare couch, leave my feet uncovered, enjoy a strange contentment and unusual sobriety. The renewal of morning is near before I realise the twin sources of my improved state of mind — that my children might love me again, and for the first time in living memory I’ve created a story which meant something worthwhile to those who heard it.
Six
I don’t like doctors. They’re too specialist for me. Same with plumbers. Electricians. Pest control men with their funny masks and sombre stories about the procreative habits of red-backs. University lecturers. Paramedics. Conveyancing lawyers and investment advisers. Computer technicians — actually, they’re the worst.
Once, my computer broke down. I swore and wept and pleaded and prayed for seven days and nights.
‘Will you please ring a technician,’ said Kaz. ‘Either that or stop whinging.’
Eventually I did ring. When the specialist arrived, her van bore a bumper-sticker that included the phrase Byte Me. She had short orange hair and halitosis. Her name was ‘Allyson: Senior Technician.’
I took her to the computer. It was squatting smugly on my desk like a belligerent old toad. She turned it on, muttered a few times, tapped some buttons, clicked her tongue.
‘You’ve wiped the hard-drive,’ she told me in a tone that suggested it would be less offensive to sodomise the Queen.
‘How?’
‘Must’ve turned it off before it was properly shut down. Geez, the number of people who do that!’
‘Sorry.’
‘Not my problem. Anyway, it’s stuffed. My advice would be to buy a new machine. This is an old 486. Pre-Cambrian, no RAM to speak of, less than two gigabytes. Slow as a Catholic wedding. Useless.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Not a problem. See you.’
&nbs
p; So, specialists irk me. And doctors are more specialist than most.
Two days a week, Garten tells me over the phone, he does private consultations away from the hospital. In order to do this he maintains an office in the centre of town — which is where he agrees to meet us.
In an oblique sense, it was Amelia’s idea.
‘We all know it was this thing called STSS,’ she said without warning. I was kidding myself that I could complete a cryptic crossword; she was curling her lips at the sexual polarities of a boy-band video-clip.
‘Bloody acronyms,’ I said bitterly. ‘I hate them, particularly that one.’
She nodded but didn’t seem to really hear me.
‘When Dad and I first heard,’ she continued, ‘I asked Mum what happened to Aunty Kath and she just snapped, “Toxic shock, of course!” — like I should know what she was talking about. But I didn’t … I’ve never heard of anything like that.’
‘Neither had I.’
She stopped, scratched at her cheek with her fingertips.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I mean, do you mind talking about this. I was just thinking and I —’
‘Talk away,’ I told her, wondering whether I was still capable of believing myself. ‘Talk is good. Keeps us preoccupied.’
‘Are you sure? I don’t want to —’
‘I’m sure. Talk.’
I must have looked reassuring because she offered me the glimmer of a smile then pressed the volume-down arrow on the TV remote.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘it just bugs me that I still don’t know anything about what happened or about ST — the disease, apart from reading some pretty crappy stuff I got off the Internet.’
Utterly dumbfounded by ‘Bed with Titania (6)’, I folded the newspaper and slung it across the kitchen bench.
‘The Internet, sweet niece-in-the-night? Have you been soft-footing it about my study, you cat-burglaress?’
She blushed, spun a skull-and-zircon ring around her smallest finger.
‘Hope you don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I didn’t … touch anything. Just sort of dusted things down and used my own access account and password on the computer. Is that okay?’
I didn’t mind, not really. Actually, I’d been pondering a return to the study — if not to write, then at least to re-establish some order. Like digging a hole and filling it back in again, placing papers in different piles usually creates a pleasant illusion of industry — and industry, as all good Protestants know, is the veritable spine of existence. Besides, in terms of seeking preoccupation I could easily idle away several blank-minded days by creating new piles and shifting old ones. These days, I thought ruefully, time seemed to be comprised more of a church-like weight than of opportunity.
‘I’d like to know more,’ said Amelia in a tone that suggested we-all-should.
‘Okay,’ I told her eventually. ‘Okay.’
Garten’s office lies within a fashionable block filled with radiographers, skin cancer specialists, proctologists and ophthalmologists. The exterior is a grid of oblongs: bricks painted in apricot, gleaming corrugated iron, reflective windows with black metallic frames. Very nouveau, very low-fat potato-salad, very pseudo-Noosa. Inside, the air-conditioning provides a welcome blast of cool. There are six exquisitely coiffed receptionists who move in perfect synchrony and wear gaudy patterned uniforms. There are also grape-coloured iMacs smiling from every desk, together with an a air of minimalist techno-efficiency.
Jorja, who has a tiny horseshoe-shaped scar on her upper lip, takes us through to Garten’s office where we are summarily greeted and seated.
‘How’s things?’ asks Garten cautiously. Still has the long doggy ears, I think; if anything they are longer and doggier. Not exactly welcoming our interview either; he has the look of a man who is about to abseil a slippery crevasse wearing nothing but thongs and loose underwear.
‘Looking up,’ I tell him, perhaps too blithely. Then: ‘This is Amelia, my niece. She’s fifteen, nearly sixteen, good with a paint-brush, smart as a new suit, knows nothing about your ST-bloody-SS, wants a few questions answered. Okay?’
He leans back and rubs his fingers across the nape of his neck.
‘A few questions?’ he repeats quizzically.
‘Absolutely. It’s time for warts-and-all. We’ve been long enough in the dark.’
‘I’ve tried to be as open as —’
‘And I didn’t let you. I know and I’m sorry … but we’re ready now.’
Garten nods, shuffles some pink and yellow folders.
‘You want the children to hear this?’ he asks, after a moment.
Milo and Otis are seated in a corner, intense, curled and coiled like springs.
‘Yes I do.’ It’s probably shambolic but I realise that I haven’t sounded so confident, so controlled, in months.
‘We all need to understand this thing,’ I tell him. ‘Better than what we do, anyway.’
He nods again, thinks for a moment. When he speaks, there is a tautness in his voice that makes me think of a fishing line cast into an ocean; red-knuckled hands on one end, a creature thrashing for its life on the other. Stretch, anxiety, futility — at that moment, Garten smells of all three.
‘It’s been quite some time. If you don’t mind me asking, why — now?’
‘I’m guessing that you think I hold you responsible,’ I tell him quietly. ‘Am I right? You think that this is some sort of sick prelude to an embittered civil action?’
‘I didn’t —’
‘You think we’re assuming that a few hundred grand will erase the pain and fill the space in our lives?’
Garten says nothing.
‘Well, it’s not true,’ I tell him firmly. ‘I don’t think you’re responsible and I’m not interested in sucking the public coffers dry. We’re here to be … educated, that’s all. And I know it all happened a while ago but we’re better late than never. Aren’t we?’
He leaves his desk, patrols the office, eventually folds his angular frame into an armchair opposite.
‘You can’t blame me for being concerned,’ he says. ‘Society has become dreadfully litigious. We’re all lambs to slaughter by courtroom, all prey to this dreadful no-win-no-fee mentality. Doctors in particular are really worried; it’s as if we have this supra-natural, god-like control over everyone’s lives — when we don’t. Not at all.’
‘I don’t hold you responsible,’ I reiterate. ‘Really. Now please, tell us about … STSS’
So he does. He is hesitant initially, describing a bacteria-based infection that wasn’t officially recognised until l987. He says that, whilst the more commonly known Toxic Shock Syndrome has been linked to menstruation, STSS occurs randomly in all areas of the world when the streptococcal bacteria invade areas of injured skin — cuts, abrasions, even popped blisters. In a sombre tone he reminds us of the rarity of the infection but qualifies this by saying that recent times have, from a statistical point of view, seen an increase in identifiable cases (which will, he reassures us, ultimately lead to an increase in understanding and treatment-viability). He is knowledgeable, clipped and scientific as he describes typical symptoms: shock, acute respiratory distress, renal impairment, major organ damage — a damning highway of road-signs that all point inexorably towards cardiac arrest.
He even blesses us with a carefully selected smorgasbord of medical jargon.
‘The infection can destroy fascia and fat,’ he tells us. ‘The process is called necrotising fasciitis. It makes the soft tissue appear violaceous, bluish.’
‘The flesh-eating bacteria’ Amelia’s voice rings out of the harsh white light. Garten looks at her quizzically, a little astonished.
‘I looked it up on the Net,’ she explains. ‘Didn’t understand much, but the phrase flesh-eating bacteria seemed pretty clear’ It is horribly clear to me too, and to the children, judging by the looks on their faces.
Garten stops, coughs vaguely, makes a show of checking his watch. We wait for more. His office
, I note, is a statement of impersonality: blanched, geometrical, comfortably defined, a good place for checking blood-pressure and prescribing Bactrim Syrup.
Nobody moves until I stand and go to shake his hand, then Otis says in a voice as clean as a pealing church-bell: ‘Why did my Mum die?’
When Garten looks at her I am surprised to see a tenderness in the man, brought forth in a look of such barren helplessness that, for the briefest instant, I feel sorry for him.
‘Sara.’ He holds out his hands, trying to shape an explanation from the artificial air. ‘Sara, I don’t know. She was unlucky, I suppose. Just plain unlucky.’
‘Was it worth it?’ Ten o’clock that night and the children are sleeping, I am slumped in a wicker chair on the veranda, glass of Chablis set portentously before me. There are no stars tonight and the air is fetid with an impending thunder-storm that blackens the distant skies. Amelia — restless, hands halfshoved into her jean pockets, hair long and decadently limp in the late-summer heat — leans against a post, licks sweat from beneath her pert nose.
‘It was good for Alex and Sara,’ she tells me. ‘Well, I think it was. At least now they understand that sometimes things just happen, even if there’s no reason or sense to them.’
A difficult and unnecessarily harsh lesson for a child, I think — to suddenly realise they’re living in a world that can invert from goodness to cruelty, from a pleasant afternoon-nap to death. It makes their childhoods seem even more vital, as if we must let them be garnered and cherished for as long as possible.
‘What about you?’
‘It helped me,’ she shrugs. ‘A bit’
‘How?’
She considers for a moment.
‘Like, I always wondered how someone could die from just a cut hand. A cut hand — you know, it happens every day. And even if it got infected … well, maybe some mercuro-chrome or antibiotics if it was bad — but to die? I just couldn’t fathom that.’
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