The Children Act

by Ian Mcewan

  “I can send your dinner away,” the nurse said. “But only for half an hour.”

  “If you can bear it,” Fiona said to Adam.

  “I can bear it.”

  She got up from her chair to allow the nurse to make her routine check on her patient and the monitors. She must have registered his emotional state and seen the wetness around his eyes, for she wiped his cheek with her hand just before she left and whispered loudly, “You listen carefully to what this lady has to say.”

  The interruption had altered the mood in the room. When Fiona was back in her chair she didn’t return to her intended question. Instead she nodded toward the sheets of paper among the debris on the bed. “I hear you’ve been writing poetry.”

  She had expected him to reject the prompt as intrusive or condescending, but he seemed relieved to be diverted and she thought his manner was sincere, completely undefended. She also noted how quickly his mood shifted.

  “I’ve just finished something. I could read it if you want. It’s really short. But wait a minute.” He rolled onto his side to face her directly. Before speaking he wetted his dried lips. Again, the creamy white tongue. In another context it might have been beautiful, a cosmetic novelty.

  He said confidingly, “What do they call you in court? Is it ‘Your Honor’?”

  “Usually it’s ‘My Lady.’ ”

  “My Lady? That’s fantastic! Am I allowed to call you that?”

  “Fiona will do.”

  “But I want to call you My Lady. Please let me.”

  “All right. What about this poem?”

  He leaned back against the pillows to get his breath back and she waited. Reaching forward at last for a sheet of paper near his knee brought on a round of enfeebled coughing. When that was done his voice was thin and husky. She heard no irony in the way he now addressed her.

  “The weird thing, My Lady, is that I didn’t start writing my best poetry until I got ill. Why do you think that is?”

  “You tell me.”

  He shrugged. “I like writing in the middle of the night. The whole building shuts down and all you can hear is this strange deep hum. You can’t hear it in the day. Listen.”

  They listened. Outside, there were still another four hours of light and rush hour was peaking. In here it was the dead of night, but she could hear no hum. She was coming to realize that his defining quality was innocence, a fresh and excitable innocence, a childlike openness that may have had something to do with the enclosed nature of the sect. The congregation, so she had read, was encouraged to keep their children apart as far as was possible from outsiders. Rather like the ultra-Orthodox Jews. Her own teenage relatives, girls as well as boys, had all too soon protected themselves with a sheen of knowing toughness. Their overstated cool was charming in its way, a necessary bridge to adulthood. Adam’s unworldliness made him endearing, but vulnerable. She was touched by his delicacy, by the way he stared fiercely at his sheet of paper, perhaps trying to hear in advance his poem through her ears. She decided that he was probably much loved at home.

  He glanced at her, drew breath and began.

  My fortunes sank into the darkest hole

  When Satan took his hammer to my soul.

  His blacksmith’s strokes were long and slow

  And I was low.

  But Satan made a cloth of beaten gold

  That shone God’s love upon the fold.

  The way with golden light is paved

  And I am saved.

  She waited in case there was more but he put the page down, leaned back and looked at the ceiling as he spoke.

  “I wrote it after one of the elders, Mr. Crosby, told me that if the worst was to happen, it would have a fantastic effect on everyone.”

  Fiona murmured, “He said that?”

  “It would fill our church with love.”

  She summed up for him. “So Satan comes to beat you with his hammer, and without meaning to he flattens your soul into a sheet of gold that reflects God’s love on everyone and for this you’re saved and it doesn’t matter so much that you’re dead.”

  “My Lady, you’ve got it exactly,” the boy almost shouted in his excitement. Then he had to stop to recover his breath again. “I don’t think the nurses understood it, except for Donna, the one who was in here just now. Mr. Crosby’s going to try and get it published in The Watchtower.”

  “That would be marvelous. You may have a future as a poet.”

  He saw through this and smiled.

  “What do your parents think of your poems?”

  “My mum loves them, my dad thinks they’re okay but they use up the strength I need to get better.” He rolled onto his side again to face her. “But what does My Lady think? It’s called ‘The Hammer.’ ”

  He had such a hunger in his look, such longing for her approval, that she hesitated. Then she said, “I think it shows a touch, a very small touch, mind, of real poetic genius.”

  He continued to gaze at her, expression unchanged, wanting more. She had thought she knew what she was doing, but just then her mind emptied. She didn’t want to disappoint him and she was not used to talking about poetry.

  He said, “What makes you say that?”

  She didn’t know, not immediately. She would have appreciated Donna returning to bustle around the machines and her patient, while she herself went to the unopenable window and looked out across Wandsworth Common and decided what to say. But the nurse was not due for another fifteen minutes. Fiona hoped that by starting to speak she would discover what she thought. It was like being at school. Back then she had mostly got away with it.

  “The shape, the form of it, and those two short lines balancing things out, you’re low, then you’re saved, the second overcoming the first, I liked that. And I liked the blacksmith’s strokes …”

  “Long and slow.”

  “Mm. Long and slow is good. And it’s very condensed, the way some of the best short poems are.” She felt some confidence returning. “I suppose it’s telling us that out of adversity, out of a terrible time, something good can come. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I don’t think you have to believe in God to understand or like this poem.”

  He thought for a moment and said, “I think you do.”

  She said, “Do you think you have to suffer to be a good poet?”

  “I think all great poets must suffer.”

  “I see.”

  By pretending to adjust her sleeve she exposed her wristwatch and glanced down at it on her lap without seeming to. She must soon return to the waiting court and give her judgment.

  But he had seen her. “Don’t go yet,” he said in a whisper. “Wait till my supper comes.”

  “All right. Adam, tell me, what do your parents think?”

  “My mum is better at dealing with it. She accepts things, you know? Submission to God. And she’s very practical, making all the arrangements, talking to the doctors, getting me this room, larger than the others, finding me a violin. But my dad is sort of tearing himself apart. He’s used to being in charge of earthmovers and stuff and making things work.”

  “And refusing a transfusion?”

  “What about it?”

  “What do your parents say to you?”

  “There isn’t much to say. We know what’s right.”

  As he said this, looking at her directly, with no particular challenge in his voice, she believed him completely; he and his parents, the congregation and the elders knew what was right for them. She felt unpleasantly light-headed, emptied out, all meaning gone. The blasphemous notion came to her that it didn’t much matter either way whether the boy lived or died. Everything would be much the same. Profound sorrow, bitter regret perhaps, fond memories, then life would plunge on and all three would mean less and less as those who loved him aged and died, until they meant nothing at all. Religions, moral systems, her own included, were like peaks in a dense mountain range seen from a great distance, no
ne obviously higher, more important, truer than another. What was to judge?

  She shook her head to dispel the thought. Waiting in reserve was the question she had been about to ask before Donna came in. As soon as she started to pose it, she felt better.

  “Your father explained some of the religious arguments, but I want to hear it in your own words. Why exactly won’t you have a blood transfusion?”

  “Because it’s wrong.”

  “Go on.”

  “And God has told us it’s wrong.”

  “Why is it wrong?”

  “Why is anything wrong? Because we know it. Torture, murder, lying, stealing. Even if we get good information out of bad people by torturing them, we know it’s wrong. We know it because God has instructed us. Even if—”

  “Is transfusion the same as torture?”

  Marina stirred in her corner. Adam, speaking in breathy snatches, set out on his exposition. Transfusion and torture were only similar in that they were both wrong. We knew it in our hearts. He quoted Leviticus and Acts, he talked about blood as the essence, about the literal word of God, about pollution, he held forth like a clever sixth-former, the star pupil in the school debate. His violet-black eyes shone as his own words moved him. Fiona recognized certain phrases from the father. But Adam spoke them like the discoverer of elementary facts, the formulator of doctrine rather than its recipient. It was a sermon she was hearing, faithfully and passionately reproduced. He presented himself as a spokesman for his sect when he said that he and his congregation just wanted to be left alone to live by what they knew to be self-evident truths.

  Fiona was attentive, she held the boy’s gaze, nodded occasionally, and when at last there was a natural pause, she stood and said, “Just to be clear, Adam. You do realize that it’s for me alone to decide what’s in your best interests. If I were to rule that the hospital may legally transfuse you against your wishes, what will you think?”

  He was sitting up, breathing hard, and seemed to sag a little at the question, but he smiled. “I’d think My Lady was an interfering busybody.”

  It was such an unexpected change of register, so absurdly understated, and her own surprise so obvious to him, that they both began to laugh. Marina, just then gathering up her handbag and notebook, seemed puzzled.

  Fiona looked at her watch, openly this time. She said, “I think you’ve made it pretty clear that you know your own mind, as much as any of us ever can.”

  He said with proper solemnity, “Thank you. I’ll tell my parents tonight. But don’t go. My supper isn’t here yet. What about another poem?”

  “Adam, I have to get back to court.” But she was keen all the same to turn the conversation away from his condition. She saw the bow lying on his bed, partly in shadow.

  “Quickly, before I go, show me your violin.”

  The case was on the floor by a locker, under the bed. She lifted it up and placed it on his lap.

  “It’s only a school violin for beginners.” But he brought it out with extreme care and showed it to her and together they admired the contoured nut-brown wood edged with black and the delicate scrolls.

  She laid her hand on the lacquered surface and he put his close to hers. She said, “They’re beautiful instruments. I always think there’s something so human about the shape.”

  He was reaching for his beginners’ violin tutor from the locker. She hadn’t intended for him to play, but she couldn’t stop him. His illness, his innocent eagerness made him impregnable.

  “I’ve been learning for four weeks exactly and I can play ten tunes.” His boast too made it impossible to deflect him. He was turning the pages impatiently. Fiona looked over at Marina and shrugged.

  “But this one is the hardest yet. Two sharps. D major.”

  Fiona was looking at the music upside down. She said, “It might just be B minor.”

  He didn’t hear her. He was already sitting up, with the violin tucked under his chin, and without pausing to tune the strings, he began to play. She knew it well, this sad and lovely melody, a traditional Irish air. She had accompanied Mark Berner in Benjamin Britten’s setting of the Yeats poem “Down by the Salley Gardens.” It was one of their encores. Adam played it scratchily, without vibrato, of course, but the pitch of the notes was true even though two or three were wrong. The melancholy tune and the manner in which it was played, so hopeful, so raw, expressed everything she was beginning to understand about the boy. She knew by heart the poet’s words of regret. But I, being young and foolish … Hearing Adam play stirred her, even as it baffled her. To take up the violin or any instrument was an act of hope, it implied a future.

  When he finished she and Marina applauded, and from his bed Adam made an awkward bow.

  “Stupendous!”

  “Fantastic!”

  “And only four weeks!”

  Fiona, in order to contain the emotion she felt, added a technical point. “Remember that in this key the C is sharp.”

  “Oh yes. So many things to think of at once.”

  Then she made a proposal that was far removed from anything she would have expected of herself, and which risked undermining her authority. The situation, and the room itself, sealed off from the world, in perpetual dusk, may have encouraged a mood of abandon, but above all, it was Adam’s performance, his look of straining dedication, the scratchy inexpert sounds he made, so expressive of guileless longing, that moved her profoundly and prompted her impulsive suggestion.

  “So play it again, and this time I’ll sing along with you.”

  Marina got to her feet, frowning, perhaps wondering whether she should intervene.

  Adam said, “I didn’t know there were words.”

  “Oh yes, two beautiful verses.”

  With touching solemnity, he raised the violin to his chin and looked up at her. When he began to play she was pleased to hear herself find the higher notes easily. She had always been secretly proud of her voice, and never had much chance to use it outside the Gray’s Inn choir, back when she was still a member. This time the violinist remembered his C sharp. On the first verse they were tentative, almost apologetic, but on the second, their eyes met and, forgetting all about Marina, who was now standing by the door, looking on amazed, Fiona sang louder and Adam’s clumsy bowing grew bolder, and they swelled into the mournful spirit of the backward-looking lament.

  In a field by the river my love and I did stand,

  And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.

  She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;

  But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

  As they finished, the lad in the brown jacket was rolling his trolley into the room and the brushed-steel plate-covers made a cheerful tinkling sound. Marina had gone out to the nurses’ station.

  Adam said, “ ‘On my leaning shoulder’ is good, isn’t it? Let’s do it again.”

  Fiona shook her head as she took the violin from him and laid it in its case. “ ‘She bid me take life easy,’ ” she quoted to him.

  “Stay just a tiny bit longer. Please.”

  “Adam, I really do have to go now.”

  “Then let me have your e-mail.”

  “Mrs. Justice Maye, Royal Courts of Justice, the Strand. That’ll find me.”

  She rested her hand briefly on his narrow cold wrist, then, not wanting to hear another protest or plea from him, she went toward the door without looking back, and ignored the question he called weakly after her.

  “Are you coming back?”

  THE RETURN JOURNEY to central London was quicker and during it the two women did not speak. While Marina made a long phone call to her husband and children, Fiona wrote notes toward her judgment. She entered the Courts of Justice by the main entrance and went immediately to her room, where Nigel Pauling was waiting. He confirmed that all the arrangements were in place for the Court of Appeal to sit tomorrow, if necessary at an hour’s notice. Also, tonight the hearing had been moved to
a court large enough to accommodate all the press.

  When she entered and the court rose it was just after nine fifteen. As the room settled she sensed impatience among the journalists. For the newspapers, this was not a convenient time. At best, if the judge was succinct, the story might make the late editions. Immediately in front of her, the various legal representatives and Marina Greene were arranged as before, within a wider space, but Mr. Henry was alone behind his counsel, without his wife.

  As soon as she sat, Fiona began her routine introductory remarks.

  “A hospital authority urgently requires the permission of the court to treat against his wishes a teenage boy, A, with conventional procedures they deem medically appropriate, which in this case includes blood transfusions. They’re looking for this relief under a Specific Issue Order. The application, made forty-eight hours ago, was on an ex parte basis. As duty judge, I granted it, subject to their assurances. I have just returned from visiting A in hospital, accompanied by Mrs. Marina Greene for Cafcass. I sat with him for an hour. That he’s extremely ill is plain to see. However, his intellect is in no way impaired and he was able to make his wishes known to me with great clarity. The treating consultant has told this court that by tomorrow A’s situation will have become a matter of life and death, which is why I give judgment so late on a Tuesday evening.”

  Fiona named and thanked the various counsel, their solicitors, Marina Greene and the hospital for helping her come to a decision in a difficult case that had to be speedily resolved.

  “The parents oppose the application on the basis of their religious faith, which is calmly expressed and profoundly held. Their son also objects and has a good understanding of the religious principles and is possessed of considerable maturity and articulacy for his age.”

  She then set out the medical history, the leukemia, the recognized treatment which generally had good outcomes. But two of the drugs conventionally administered caused anemia, which needed to be countered by blood transfusion. She summarized the consultant’s evidence, noting in particular the declining hemoglobin count and the dire prognosis if it was not reversed. She could personally confirm that A’s breathlessness was now apparent.