Mercy Street

by Tess Evans

  Laura looks up as George comes back in. ‘We’ve got her on oxygen, but she’s still not stabilised.’ She mutters something to Ben. ‘We’ll have to take her to the hospital. Are you ready to come with her?’

  Rory looks so tiny on the stretcher. ‘Richie’s all set, love. I’m coming with you. We’re going to have a ride in an ambulance.’ George’s over-bright voice makes it sound like a ride on a merry-go-round. He scrambles on some clothes while they wheel her out. He hadn’t wanted it to end like this.

  The ambulance travels at speed. No siren, but he’s sure there are lights – those insistent, red-and-blue lights that demand right of way for the sick, the injured, the dying. It’s familiar, this space, with its tubes and wires and machines. In a space such as this he had held Pen’s hand on each of their journeys to hospital, while he prayed to a distant god and watched the paramedics ply their trade in a manner both professional and deeply intimate. Here, now, he holds a smaller hand. Prays for another someone who is dear to him. Watches as Laura regulates oxygen flow, checks blood pressure and listens through her stethoscope. All with gentle hands and a soothing murmur. George, humble, watches those hands, listens to that murmur, and believes.

  ‘She’ll be all right.’ It isn’t a question.

  Laura looks up. ‘Nearly there,’ she says. ‘It’s a good hospital.’

  Belief is fragile. ‘She will be all right?’

  The ambulance stops at the hospital entrance and Rory is taken, still attached to the oxygen tank, through reception to the large swinging doors of the emergency ward.

  The space is small, just six cubicles, all of them empty. The medical team begin their assessment, and George, agitated and clumsy, gets in the way. A nurse appears at his elbow. ‘Just come out here for a moment, sir. We’ll get some details while Doctor sees to the child.’ She has a lovely Irish accent and a broad pleasant face.

  ‘I’ll just be outside,’ he tells Rory. ‘Be good for the doctor.’

  Rory’s eyes are glued to him. They’re so big and so scared that he can’t let go of her hand.

  ‘Come with me,’ the nurse says, taking George’s arm. ‘I’ll leave the curtain open so you can see each other.’ George goes with her to the nurses’ station, turning every few seconds to give Rory a reassuring wave.

  ‘Name?’ George and the nurse (Niamh – You pronounce it Nee-iv, she tells him) are sitting at the desk squeezed into a corner of the ward.

  ‘Name,’ George repeats, as though it’s a medical term he doesn’t quite understand. ‘Of course. Yes. Name. Johnson. George Johnson.’

  She looks up with searching eyes then her shoulders lift in the slightest of shrugs. ‘Patient’s name, George Johnson.’

  ‘No.’ George’s voice is so subdued that she has to lean forward to hear him. ‘My name is George Johnson. The little girl is Aurora-Jane Wilson. We call her Rory.’

  The nurse is immobile. But she knows. She knows. And there’s fear in her eyes.

  ‘I won’t hurt you,’ George says. ‘And I haven’t hurt Rory, I swear.’ Doubt flickers across her face and George presses his slight advantage. ‘Do what you have to do, but you must let me call her mother. And . . .’ His voice is breaking with the terror of it all. ‘Please. Please, Niamh. Don’t let them take me till her mother gets here.’

  She hands him the phone. ‘Her mammy first. But I make no promises, mind. After that it’s the police.’ Pol-ice. She puts the stress on the first syllable.

  He rings Bree. Without his phone, he has no idea of Angie’s mobile number. ‘She’s at her gran’s,’ Bree tells him. ‘Nowhere else to go. I’ll ring her there. And, George?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Rory is all right? Only we didn’t hear from you and they were saying such dreadful things.’

  ‘I swear,’ George says. ‘I swear I’ve never hurt her.’ It kills him, the thought that even his friends are beginning to doubt him. In the end, he has no choice but to see it through.

  ‘I’m in the hospital at Muswellbrook. Tell Angie to come as soon as she can. Maybe the cops or the television people can help.’

  ‘Hospital? Why is she in hospital? What have you done to her?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ve done nothing. It’s her asthma. I only took her because Angie was going to take her away from me. You know that.’

  George can’t take any more. He hands the phone to Niamh and begins to cry. He doesn’t sob or wail. From deep inside he feels the tears well until they roll, in an unstoppable stream, down his face and onto the desk in front of him.

  That’s how the young constable finds him, in tears. Unmanly. Unmanned. They have let him back with Rory, who is separated from him by the walls of an oxygen tent. ‘She’ll be okay,’ the doctor tells him. ‘We’re only letting you back in because she’s fretting.’ Niamh stands by in the corner of the cubicle and a security guard takes position after frisking him for a weapon. Shattered, George accepts these precautions as inevitable.

  Rory’s eyes are closed. She had relaxed once her Poppy was back. Her hands are tucked beyond his grasp, behind the plastic tent, but she sneaks one out and George takes it in his. She has been his life for nearly two years – but this is the moment when he begins to let go, curiously impatient for it all to end. He is already thinking of life with her in the past tense. As a tale fondly told. She really loved our trips to the library. Cheeky little bugger – she used to call me a ‘reading mum’.

  It had been like that in the end, with Penny. He loved her, but waiting for the inevitable had torn him apart. He hadn’t wanted her to die. He hadn’t. But the wait was cruel for both of them. He was ashamed when he fell asleep as she lay awake. He was ashamed that he sometimes had to go for a walk, just to escape the knowing. To breathe in air that was fresh and redolent of an early spring. She must have understood that this was to be her last spring. She must have. He filled her room with daffodils. She loved them, but he found their joyful yellow trumpets obscene. So sometimes, in that fag-end of the world, overcome with weariness and grief, he’d pray that she’d let go. Finalise this awful process and leave him to his memories of long, happy years.

  So it is with Rory. Her colour is returning. She isn’t going to die. But she is going to leave him. Regardless of his wishes or (he hopes) hers, their life together is finished. He needs to lash out and looks up at the young constable, hovering in the doorway. ‘A bit of a feather in your cap, son. Arresting me.’

  The boy (he still has that golden fuzz on his face) places his hand on his gun. ‘Shut your mouth or I’ll make you sorry you messed with a little girl.’

  ‘Poppy.’ Rory is awake and trying to sit up. ‘Don’t go.’ She begins to wheeze again and Niamh slips into the tent and lays her head back on the pillow.

  ‘There now, cushla. It’s grand. You’ll be grand, darlin’. Your Poppy’s here.’ She turns to the young policeman. ‘Now, Tony Martin. You’ll be waiting for the sergeant, you will, while I’ll be looking after this child. She wants her Poppy and we don’t want to upset her.’

  Constable Martin is clearly in two minds, so George tries to help out. ‘I won’t escape. On my mother’s grave. And . . .’ He looks the lad in the eye. ‘If I had hurt the kid, would she want me here?’

  The constable decides to ignore George and addresses Niamh. ‘All right, Mrs Connolly – if you think there’s a medical reason . . .’

  ‘Good lad. That I do. And how’s your mother’s tennis going?’

  The ‘lad’ shuffles and glares at his feet. George (strangely perceptive at such a time) can see him thinking – The next vacancy and I’m out of this hole.

  The sergeant and the social worker arrive within minutes of each other. The small cubicle is beginning to feel like a train carriage at peak hour. The doctor returns and demands that they leave her patient in peace. ‘I think my authority has precedence in these circumstances,’ she tells the sergeant. ‘You can all wait outside. Not you,’ she says to George, as he stands to go. ‘She won’t settle without
you.’

  So George gains a few more precious minutes and uses them to explain to Rory why he has to go. ‘Your mummy is on her way,’ he says. ‘Nurse Niamh told me that she’s coming in a helicopter. Isn’t that exciting?’

  ‘Can we go in a helicopter too?’

  ‘I don’t know. We can ask. But, sweetheart, I can’t come with you. I have to . . . They think I . . .’ There’s no simple explanation. ‘I have to collect Richie from the motel.’

  ‘Give him a big kiss from me.’

  ‘Sure will.’

  ‘And, Poppy?’

  ‘Yes, sweetheart?’

  ‘Promise you’ll come back really fast?’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘Can Mummy stay with us?’

  ‘Mums are very special, aren’t they?’ He seeks her hand. Finds it. ‘And Rory? Don’t forget your old Poppy, will you? Remember he loves you more than . . . a double ice-cream sundae. With chocolate and sprinkles.’

  She giggles. ‘You’re so funny, Poppy.’

  She closes her eyes and George’s head begins to nod. His lack of sleep the night before is compounded by emotional turmoil and the craving for sleep overwhelms him. He wakes to the sound of voices and the shock of a decent thump between his shoulderblades. ‘Prison’s too good for you,’ a woman’s voice screams. ‘You should be drowned in boiling oil and put through a mincer.’

  Alarmed, George springs to his feet as a second thwack knocks him back into his chair. His assailant is a small, fair-haired woman with Rory’s pointy chin, wielding a large handbag like it’s a broadsword. The grandmother! She’s followed in quick succession by Angie who, not notwithstanding the oxygen tent, throws herself with youthful drama onto her daughter’s bed.

  Angie screams. ‘My baby!’

  Rory tries to sit up.

  Niamh calls for assistance and two policemen, a security guard and a cleaner wielding a mop explode into the room.

  George, who has been fending off Gran and her handbag, is grateful when the security guard pulls her away, less grateful when the policemen grab either arm and pull his hands up behind his back, wrenching his shoulders in their enthusiasm.

  ‘That’ll teach you,’ yells the mop-wielding cleaner, bobbing around behind the policemen.

  ‘Settle down!’ Niamh (who would have thought it?) yells like a navvy. ‘Think of the child, yer feckin’ eejits.’

  ‘Where’s George going? I want George.’ Rory, frightened, is trying to reach for her Poppy. ‘Where are they going?’

  Angie flusters and blusters. ‘Don’t worry about that. You got me. I’m here.’

  Amid the fuss, George is led out, none too gently, by Constable Tony, the sergeant and the security guard. They all want a piece of him – to be within his ambit at this time is to be within a hairsbreadth of glory. He opens his mouth to say goodbye. To remind Rory that he loves her. But what’s the point? Her mother and great-grandmother are there for her, one each side of the bed like bodyguards. All he wanted, he tries to explain to the sergeant, was to give her a shot at a better life.

  ‘Poppy!’

  He’ll never forget that cry. I let her down, Pen. I promised to be with her and I let her down. His arms are twisted tighter and he hears the snapping of handcuffs. ‘Shut up,’ the sergeant says. ‘Or you might have a nasty accident.’

  21

  The solicitor advises George that the most serious charge he will face is abduction. Serious enough – but at least the authorities have satisfied themselves that Rory has not been subjected to any kind of abuse. ‘Although,’ the solicitor adds, ‘that doesn’t mean everyone will believe the evidence. There was a lot of shit flying around when you went missing. People don’t like their prejudices challenged. Look at Lindy Chamberlain.’

  George mumbles a response. He has reason to feel bad about Lindy Chamberlain. He had been one of those who’d refused the evidence even when it became irrefutable. Dingo, my eye. It was one of the family – mark my words. A dingo couldn’t take away a baby. I don’t care what they say. Now he understands. There has been hate mail, and his house – his and Pen’s modest refuge in Mercy Street – has been egged.

  Bail is set at two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars, surprising even the prosecutor, who concedes that George is unlikely to either abscond or re-offend. And before he can gather his thoughts, an ‘anonymous businessman’ pays his bail.

  George steps out to temporary freedom, puzzling about his unknown benefactor. Shirl is driving him to the flat she’s organised. (Under the circumstances, they’ve been advised not to take him home.) ‘It’s Mr Nguyen, you idiot,’ she says. ‘He owns three Vietnamese restaurants and imports Aussie flags and kangaroo keychains and that sort of thing from Vietnam and China.’

  George shakes his head. ‘He seemed like such a nice, ordinary bloke.’ He feels cheated by this new knowledge. It will take some getting used to – the discovery that he’d been hobnobbing with a millionaire and didn’t even know it.

  ‘He’s the same person,’ Shirl snaps. ‘A bit of gratitude wouldn’t go astray.’

  Sheepish, George slides down in his seat. ‘Fair enough.’

  So for the months leading up to the trial, George stays in a rented flat not far from Shirl’s, while the press feeds on speculation. Having an eye to the laws of libel, they can no longer suggest that he may be a paedophile and turn their attention to Angie. Within a few days (for those outside Angie’s ‘media group’), he is a hero who rescued a child from a drug-addicted mother and her series of nasty boyfriends; and George, though relieved to be vindicated, pities poor Angie, who looks more miserable and defensive with each appearance. Don’t talk to them, Angie. When they smell blood, you can’t win.

  Her story is confused, and confusing. ‘No. Well – yes.’ She did leave Rory with George.

  ‘No.’ She didn’t expect him to kidnap the child.

  ‘Yes.’ She had been frantic.

  ‘Yes.’ Even though it took nearly two years to come back for her.

  Surely as a mother . . . Didn’t she ever think he might harm Rory?

  ‘Yes. No. He bought her pyjamas. Two pairs. He seemed kind . . . He was kind. I think – thought he was. And puppy-dog slippers. She liked those . . .’

  As the date set for his trial comes closer, the media, both social and conventional, ignite with renewed passion, so much so that the press are warned not to jeopardise the integrity of the trial. Print and television media pull back, assessing each news item against possible contempt of court.

  Not so the social media. Mothers for Rory are not as focused as Women for Angie. While they’re against Angie, they are not quite sure what being ‘for Rory’ means. Does it mean that they believe that Rory should be raised by a man well into his seventies who is no blood relative? At the extreme end, some do. Others want to use the story as an example of how society fails vulnerable children. Most, however, are good-hearted women who, appalled at Angie’s desertion, do the cyber equivalent of milling about, uncertain of the outcome they want.

  When Angie’s grandmother applies for custody, a relieved cohort form a splinter group – Mothers for Jeannie – while others mutate into the No Jail for George movement.

  Fortunately for George, none of his friends (except Bree, and she’s not telling) has any idea how to access these websites, and for a while he enjoys an ignorance, if not exactly blissful, at least not as troubling as it might be.

  He’s the inert centre of all this controversy and sits in his flat watching television in a kind of stupor that frustrates Shirl beyond telling. ‘One interview, George. Let me give your side of the story.’

  ‘Let me be, Shirl. Just this once, let me be.’

  She’s appalled by the misery, the quiet desperation in his eyes, and without further nagging continues each day to minister to his physical and mental comfort. She talks of other things – reminding him of the good times in his life, the amusing incidents, the stories that are part of their shared history. This comforts him mor
e than she can know and he feels the need to offer something in return. So he sets the record straight about Penny.

  ‘She didn’t go off with another bloke. It was me that made her leave. It was a terrible thing to do – telling you that.’

  ‘I know, George. I’ve always known.’

  He doesn’t know how she found out, but it doesn’t matter. It’s like he’s dying and has to tidy up his life.

  Shirl brings him books but he can’t be bothered. He has read the first three pages of Biggles Flies Again several times but can’t remember a word. He eats the food prepared and delivered by Shirl and Mrs Nguyen (delicious) and Bree (barely edible), but all dishes taste the same. He has known bereavement – and this is very like.

  George becomes aware of the No Jail for George group when he answers the door one morning to two middle-aged women. ‘Hello?’ He scans their faces. He’s almost certain he hasn’t met them before. ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘Paula Henson,’ the tall one says. ‘And this is Maria Katsakis. We’ve come to help you with your Twitter account.’

  George has heard of Twitter, of course, but has only just begun to use email, so what could this have to do with him? ‘Twitter,’ he says. ‘I see . . .’

  Encouraged, the women step past him and he stares at them blankly while Maria turns on the kettle and Paula arranges some biscuits on a plate.

  Feeling like a guest in his own living room, George is invited to sit down. ‘Did Shirl send you?’

  ‘No.’ The short reply, through pursed lips, indicates that they had perhaps met Shirl.

  Paula waves George to a seat while Maria brings in the tea on a tray. ‘As you know, I am the founder . . .’ Maria bangs down her cup. ‘Or should I say, we are the founders of the No Jail for George movement.’