Her name was Madeline. She was twenty years younger than his father. And she cost three hundred and fifty-seven dollars a day.
Even though it wasn’t in her job description, Madeline made Peter and Jack tea. It was strange to have a female presence in the house. After their mother’s death, Peter had raised the two boys on his own. The main difference, Jack noticed, was that more curtains were open. The light splayed between rooms, unrestrained through doorways, because, just like in Jack’s old home, all of the doors had been removed from their hinges. That was an old treatment recommendation back when Jack would lock himself in a room to throw up in a wastebasket. He couldn’t be trusted, first with any lock, and then with any privacy whatsoever. So the doors had to go.
Peter had put his doors back up when Jack had improved, but Jack kept his own stacked in a pile in his garage. Peter must have decided to remove the doors again as some form of homecoming. Although the ‘I’m watching you’ tone of the shoulder squeeze in the car lingered in the act, Jack appreciated it. He’d been behind enough doors lately.
The three of them sat around the kitchen table, nursing their mugs. Jack could tell Madeline didn’t feel it was her place to say anything, but neither did she have the discretion to leave. Peter was rotating the mug in his hands, scraping the table.
‘I might go see him,’ said Jack, standing. No one said anything. Peter looked into his tea. Scrape.
Jack walked up the stairs into Liam’s room. He paused outside the door. His breathing was shallow, nervous. He’d seen his brother on Skype over the last few months, but he’d only got glimmers of his condition. He felt a wave of exhaustion. Those soldiers in his brain stomped and slammed their shields into the ground. Orange dust rose. He shook them off, opened the door.
Liam was lying on his back, the bed flat. The curtains in this room weren’t open. He was a shadow on the bed, a dark mass on white sheets. The smell was of talcum powder mixed with sweat: nothing foul, just a room that’s pretending to be clean when it isn’t. A teenage boy covering for a shower with deodorant. Jack wondered if the smell was really that strong or if he was just feeling overpowered again. The soft sounds of the heart rate monitor and the respirator laid a baseline. Beep. Beep. Wheeze.
Jack flicked on the light. There was his brother, amid a spider’s web of tubing. Neither asleep nor awake, chest rising up and down in a calm mechanical fashion. Beep. Beep. Wheeze.
Liam had fallen from a rock formation when he was fourteen years old. Jack had been only twelve, but he’d been mucking around with his brother at the time. They weren’t supposed to play there. Jack remembered very specific details. Liam’s arms pinwheeling the air. The plume of orange dust. The jagged shape his body made. The way they strapped him to a bright-red stretcher with canvas straps, as if securing a fridge. The helicopter beating stinging debris into his eyes. The stretcher skimming the treetops. The firey’s hand on Jack’s back. How dry Jack’s mouth had been when he’d lied and told them Liam had gone up alone.
The helicopter had got Liam to a hospital in time to save his life, but the lack of oxygen to his brain had caused serious damage. Peter explained it to Jack as a coma. The doctors called it a vegetative state. After three months, they upgraded him to a ‘persistent vegetative state’. After another year, they promoted him to ‘permanent’. The career ladder of the comatose is the most bureaucratic of the illnesses. Performance reviews are based purely on time served. Sit in your chair long enough and you get a gold watch and a new title. Permanent Vegetative State is basically tenure, with no long-service leave.
Just like seeing his dad age, it was strange watching Liam grow. And grow he did, as his body morphed from teenager to adult with the slowest of progress, but none of the wear of someone who’d lived. No scars or spots or burns or wrinkles. The human body ages by breaking and healing. It was almost as if Liam was in a test tube, and while his bones changed to man, the soul (and the soft, pale face) remained the teenage boy who’d been hurt and had never woken up. Jack and his father would cut hair, clip fingernails and shave beards, because they, too, were preserving something.
Liam needed all the basic things – nutrition, hydration and respiration – but didn’t need complex physical care, so they’d been able to set him up at home. Later, the money Jack had made on his Curtis Wade documentary, in which he’d trawled through a cold case murder in a vineyard in the hope of exonerating a killer, had made it easier. He’d bought nicer equipment: a state-of-the-art breathing apparatus, a new bed that moved electronically. Jack surveyed the machines. The wheezing machine, a rubber accordion pumping up and down. The tube at Liam’s hip to gurgle down thick brown nutrient-rich paste (in one of his many lessons from the last two years, Jack had at last realised his problematic relationship with food may have started with watching his brother transparently digest his meals; it made it feel like nothing more than tasteless sludge in Jack’s own mouth). The IV in Liam’s arm gave fluids. There was no alchemy to it. No magic. The human body is a shell: put enough basic functions into it and the chest moves and the heart beats. Liam, forced into life, had been stable for twenty years.
Then, six months ago, he’d got pneumonia.
The decline had been sharp. Jack could see now that Liam’s weight had severely dropped. His bones were prominent and, lying flat, the skin, dragged by gravity, pooled at his joints, as if he were partially melting. Jack sat in the armchair by the bed and held Liam’s hand. His fingers were thinner than Jack’s, colder too. Quite a feat.
‘Hey, mate,’ Jack said. ‘I’m back.’
Since the pneumonia, they’d pumped him full of all kinds of things and got him back to equilibrium. But the body, the shell, was wearing out. The care requirements – the observation and the medicine – had increased. Blood clots in his legs. Bedsores and skin infections ran riot. Liam’s eyes had been taped shut to prevent corneal ulcers; two tabs of clear plastic held them closed. Jack had had a nightmare in prison that Liam might wake, try to open them, and be too weak to conquer the tape.
And, somewhere along the line, someone had mentioned withdrawing treatment.
Jack had learned a lot of official terms in his years in and out of hospitals. They liked to tick boxes, name things. Jack didn’t use the dreaded ‘b’ word for his own illness. He and his father had compressed the plethora of buzzwords into simply ‘a problem with food’. There were lots of terms the specialists had for Liam, but Jack thought about it in the same language. Liam had a problem with food. Liam had a problem with breathing. Liam had a problem with living. Stick the machines in him, and he had a problem with dying too.
Withdrawing treatment was a new term though. Euthanasia was illegal in New South Wales, but this was the opposite. All they would do was stop providing the mechanical functions, and the body would naturally die. It had been recommended. As if it were a film the doctor had quite enjoyed.
Were it on the taxpayer’s dime, Liam would have almost certainly had his treatment withdrawn. People didn’t wake up from PVS. Every single documented case of a recovery had been attributed to an initial misdiagnosis. In the public system, he’d be a liability.
Liam had a problem with financially viable recovery potential.
But because Liam was in home care, and because the patient’s wishes were unclear (as if any gloomy fourteen-year-old had the foresight to provide their parents with a Do Not Resuscitate), it was ultimately their decision. Jack and Peter had gently talked about whether it was time, but both of them wanted to hang on for just a bit longer. They’d researched it, and it seemed that as long as they didn’t rely on anything government-run they would be fine. However, if the public system felt burdened, the Supreme Court had the capacity to intervene, and almost surely would, on the doctor’s recommendation.
Enter Madeline. A private nurse. Paid for out of Jack’s own pocket. The problem was, Jack’s pockets were getting thin. He’d been sued by the television network, by the family of the winery murder victims, both of which had
settled (Jack had just signed whatever had been put in front of him, his stomach churning), not to mention the costs of his own legal team. Much of his income from his show was considered profiteering from the crime he’d committed, so his earnings had been confiscated. To say he had been wealthy when he went to prison would be understating it – he’d been at the helm of one of the most successful television shows in decades. But now he was close to broke. He’d sold his home. Luckily, he had been able to save his father’s. But after that they had nothing left. In television, you’re only as good as your last episode. Just ask Mr Midnight.
Madeline was expensive. She worked from two to five. Every day at five o’clock, when she finished, Jack would rub another tally mark off his cell wall.
They were doing all they could. Jack, not needing it, had sold his car. His heart had splintered when he’d gotten out of the prison and seen Peter in that uniform. A red polo with an embroidered yellow logo for LiquorMania, the bottle shop where he’d been putting in part-time shifts. Jack had spent most of his spare time trying to squeeze living costs and expenses into different calculations, his notepad scrawled with hope but no answers. Just to get one more day. One more tally mark.
When he left the prison, he’d been down to thirty-six tally marks. Thirty-six days of care left. Just shy of thirteen thousand dollars. And when that ran out . . .
On a three-way call, one doctor had explained it as exceedingly simple. Liam wasn’t conscious, so he wouldn’t notice the change. They would just remove the respirator, and the body would naturally settle into death.
‘He won’t feel a thing,’ the doctor had assured them.
‘Yeah,’ replied Jack, ‘but I will.’
CHAPTER 5
‘I wanted you to see him,’ Peter said. He was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame. No door. He was still wearing his bottle-shop uniform.
‘Thanks, Dad.’
‘Madeline thinks—’
‘I know what she thinks. Same as all the others.’
‘Well. They’re professionals.’
‘Are you serious? We’re doing this now?’
Peter rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I wanted you to see him,’ he repeated. ‘Wanted to wait until you got out.’
‘Wait? For what? This is quite an ambush.’
‘Just to talk about it. I’m not saying I’ve decided either way. But it’s worth thinking about more, now you’re home. We won’t do anything unless we do it together.’
‘Dad, it’s fine.’
‘I don’t know how much longer—’
‘Thirty-six days.’ Jack heard the front door close downstairs. He looked at his watch. ‘Thirty-five.’
Peter didn’t seem to know what to say to that. Now that Jack had said it, five weeks didn’t seem very long at all. The respirator wheezed.
‘I have to work tonight.’ Peter settled on something factual, non-contentious. ‘You’ll be okay?’
Jack looked at his father, now dressed up to serve teenagers premix cans. He realised Peter must be pulling a double shift. Morning shift, a few hours off, and now close. Jack imagined his father asking his pimple-faced boss if he could have a few hours off. I need to pick my son up from prison. Jesus. He was supposed to be retired. Two sons, both imprisoned: one in body, one in bars. And Peter, on the edge of it all, persistently and permanently, weathering the disappointments, trying to hold their family together.
‘I got a job.’ The words shot out of him before he’d even thought about it.
Peter raised an eyebrow.
‘Pays well,’ Jack said. He restrained himself from adding ‘It’s above board’ because he felt it would acknowledge that he didn’t believe his father trusted him. And because he wasn’t sure if it was. He settled on ‘We’ll be fine.’
Jack could tell Peter had neither the time nor the inclination to challenge him further. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to talk about it sometime.’
‘Sometime. Not until we have to. And not in front of him.’
‘He can’t hear us.’
‘I’m not an idiot,’ Jack said. He traced a line with his thumb on the back of Liam’s hand. He knew the touch would go unfelt. In the bed Liam lay silent, calm and thoughtless. Did he dream? ‘But I can’t stop imagining if he could. Doctors don’t know everything about the brain. And maybe he’s lying there listening to us. And he can’t talk and he can’t scream and his eyes are taped shut. He’s banging on the walls of his cage.’ Jack locked eyes with his father. ‘And we’re standing here talking about when we’re going to kill him.’
Peter turned from the door to go. Then he had second thoughts, and gave Jack a gentle shrug. ‘I might sound callous, but I’ve been with him every day. You’ve been away for—’
‘Don’t use that.’
‘It’s not like I want to talk about this.’
‘Then don’t.’
‘It’s natural. It’s not killing.’
That was doctors’ language. Peter had been indoctrinated. It almost felt like a betrayal.
‘Letting someone die . . .’ Jack bristled. ‘Isn’t it the same thing?’
Peter made a non-committal hmmm, looked at his watch, and left. Jack listened to the creak of the stairs, tried to track his father through the house by sound (it was difficult without doors closing), to make sure he wasn’t coming back. The click of the front door settled it. Jack already had his phone in his hand, had thumbed the number in. He didn’t know why he wanted to wait until he was alone, but it felt appropriate, given the almost conspiratorial circumstances.
‘We’ll be okay,’ he said to Liam. To himself.
He pressed dial as he squeezed his brother’s hand just that little bit tighter. Liam was a good confidant. He kept secrets.
‘Knew it,’ said a deep voice on the other end of the call.
‘I’ve got a no-gloating policy,’ Jack said.
‘I’ll try. But, shit, with that attitude, how’d you make it in TV?’
Jack ignored the barb. ‘I’ve decided to help you.’
The phone was silent.
‘Did you hear me? I said I’ll help.’
‘Sure. Yeah. I heard. You said no gloating.’
Jack imagined the shine of his teeth, the sly wink, through the phone. Harry was still playing to the back of the room. Jack wondered if he had an off switch. Probably not. TV guys with ego tend not to. If this guy dropped the act, there might not be anything at all behind the curtain. A magic trick laid bare and boring.
‘Right. I want to be clear on something. I don’t believe you. I’m not an investigator. I’m not even a journalist. I make docos. Made. I barely even do that anymore. I don’t even believe that you have a case, but you’re offering me money to look into it and – you’ve already got this figured, I’m sure – I need the cash to take care of my brother. I just wanted to be honest. It’s a new thing I’m trying. I’m not doing this because I want to, or because the death intrigues me. Definitely not because I like you. I’m doing this because I want your money. Just so you know what you’re buying.’
‘I hear you. I prefer cards on the table. Work for hire is fine by me.’
‘I have terms.’
‘Expected nothing less.’
‘You said fifty thousand. I want seventy.’
‘Deal.’ No hesitation.
‘And . . .’ Jack racked his brains to think of more to ask for. He wanted to appear assertive, in control. Harry had answered so quickly he needed to up his demands to make himself sound more serious. What do people normally ask for in situations like this? ‘I want half in advance, and the other half when we’re out of leads. I’m not going to cut corners, but if the only answer we find is one you’re not happy with, you still gotta pay up if I tie it in a bow for you. For the record, that includes the conclusion that this is a suicide. Which we both know it clearly is. And it includes not finding anything at all.’
‘Deal.’
‘And you pay costs.’ That so
unded good. Did he have costs? He’d have to find some.
‘Deal.’
‘Right then. Meet me at Channel 14 tomorrow at nine. I should be able to talk us in, and we can start looking around. You got a pen?’
‘I know the address.’
‘It’s for my bank details.’
Harry chuckled, which made the audio fizz. There was a sound of rummaging, then he was back. ‘You don’t fuck around.’
‘I told you what I’m here for.’ Jack gave the numbers.
‘Sure thing, mate. Takes a day to clear. Should land tomorrow.’
Jack felt uneasy. Had he really just made thirty-five thousand dollars in one phone call? He turned it over in his head: he knew Sam was a popular television entertainer, but where was Harry’s money coming from? Sam’s will was the obvious answer. But that could have been split any number of ways. He had a daughter. A partner. Jack remembered the chilling tone of Sam telling her to change the channel. He wondered what he was getting himself into. He looked over at Liam. Recalled his father standing in the doorway. It’s not killing. Steeled himself. Not until we have to.
‘I just want to know one more thing,’ Jack said. ‘You keep saying I’m right for this. I don’t get it. I solved a murder that was four years old and created a new victim.’ And that was only what was in the press; Harry couldn’t know the whole truth. No one did – only the killer and the dead. ‘I crossed lines, lied and went against the police, and got a whole heap of violence and trouble for the effort. I won’t again. I don’t have some magic touch. I’m not some crime-solving genius. I stumbled through it. I used to work at the same station, sure, but I didn’t know your brother that well, if at all. I’m not even sure they’ll let me in. There are heaps of journalists there who would be a better fit. I’m happy for you to piss your money away if you want, but I’ve got to ask, why me?’
Either Side of Midnight : A Novel (2020) Page 4