‘You don’t know that.’
‘Tom, women know these things about other women. Gracie was overjoyed to see you and she wanted to kill me.’
‘You’re wrong.’
‘I’m not.’
He turned back to the wheel again, started tapping it with his fingertips. ‘We need to get going again. And before you ask, yes, I am all right to drive.’
‘If you ask me, you two have unfinished business.’
‘It finished a long time ago, Emily. Eight years ago in Italy. I’ve hardly thought about her since then. It was only when this letter from her aunt arrived that I got curious.’
‘Oh, really.’
‘Really.’
Emily’s husband, Simon, was waiting at the gate of their Hawthorn house when they drove up. He handed a red-faced, tear-streaked Sam straight to Emily, then came around to Tom’s window. ‘So how was it?’
Emily spoke first. ‘She’s beautiful, with short white-blonde hair, big dark eyes and Tom couldn’t stop staring at her. If he really was my partner, I’d have a word or two to say to him. You try and talk some sense into him, Simon. God knows I’ve done all I can.’
Simon leaned against the car. ‘What happened, Donovan?’
‘Emily’s exaggerating. It was fine. I’m fine. I needed to see her, now I have, so can we all just move on?’
‘He’s been lying to himself like that since we drove away.’ Emily said, jiggling Sam in her arms.
‘Ignore her, Simon. Now that you’ve given up your law career, haven’t you got some dishes to wash, Emily?’
She grinned. ‘Good try, Donovan. And hint taken. I’m going inside. But I think you should cancel that plane ticket to Perth and drive straight back there.’
‘That plane ticket is my work.’
‘Yes, exactly. It’s work. This is your life.’ She leaned in, kissed him quickly on the cheek. ‘See you, Tom. Think about it.’
Simon waited until she was inside. ‘So what happened?’
‘I was there when she arrived, we said hello, we spoke for a few minutes, she met Emily, then we left.’
‘That was it? After eight years, that was it?’
Tom nodded.
‘You didn’t ask her why she never got in touch with you after the accident?’
Tom was tapping the steering wheel with his fingers again. ‘She did get in touch, with Nina. To say she never wanted to see me again.’
‘But did you ask her today why not? After everything that had happened between you?’
‘It didn’t seem like the right time. And not in front of Emily. For both our sakes.’
‘It was a mistake to bring Emily, then?’
‘No, she was brilliant. A born actress. And I’m glad she was there.’ Tom ran his fingers through his hair. ‘It would have been hard whatever way I did it. But it’s done now. Over.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’ His tone was firm but he didn’t meet his friend’s eyes. ‘I’d better go. See you when I get back.’
‘Sure.’ Simon thumped the roof of the car twice with his hand in farewell. ‘Take care, Donovan.’
It wasn’t until two hours later, as Tom took his seat on the plane, plugged in his iPod, shut his eyes and leaned his head back that he allowed himself to think about her again.
He hadn’t known what to expect. All he knew was that since the letter from Hope arrived at the newspaper office he’d been unable to think of anything or anyone else. She’d always been in his mind somewhere, despite his best efforts to block thoughts of her. But every memory came rushing back then, ending each time with the same stark truth. The fact she’d wanted nothing to do with him after she’d been told he wouldn’t walk again.
He’d never been able to understand it. That had never seemed like the Gracie he’d known: the Gracie he’d met as a child; written to as a teenager; met again in London as a nineteen-year-old and then fallen in love with two years later. He knew his mother, his aunt, his friends all thought he’d made too much of the relationship. That they were just kids. Yet it hadn’t been like that. There had been something special between them. He’d read about it once in a book, or heard it in a song, a poem, somewhere. Someone more lyrical than him had described meeting the person you loved as feeling like coming home. He’d felt it that first night when they met at the railway station in London. Once he saw her standing there, smiling at him, her dark eyes, that red coat, that big beautiful smile, he hadn’t wanted to be alone again.
The Gracie he’d known and travelled with didn’t match the Gracie who hadn’t got in touch with him again after the accident. If he’d been able to, he would have phoned her from his hospital bed. If he’d had even half an hour without pain, without shock, once he’d regained consciousness, he would have used the time to talk to her. But no one would let him. When he was barely strong enough to realise where he was, let alone hear news like that, Nina had come to his room and told him about her conversation with Gracie. She’d been as upset by Gracie’s decision as he was, he’d seen that. They’d been friends too. Nina could hardly meet his eyes as she told him what Gracie had said as they stood on the steps of the Rome hospital, moments before she, Eleanor and Spencer flew back home to London.
He’d been dazed with the pain, the drugs, still in shock. He’d asked for more detail.
‘She feels it’s for the best, Tom, for you and for her.’
He’d accepted it at the time. What choice did he have? But when he was back home in the clinic in Australia, when he had the strength again, he’d written a letter to Gracie. It had taken him a long time, physically and to find the right words. He’d given it to his mother to post for him. When no reply came, he wrote again, telling himself the first letter had gone missing. For the next weeks, months, he’d waited for word back. Nothing.
He’d picked up the phone beside his bed many times, on the verge of calling her, needing to hear her voice. But then the reality of what he was now had rushed at him. Why would she want to be with him? Why would any woman want to?
His months of depression began around that time. He learnt afterwards he’d followed the textbook cycle of a patient with sudden spinal injuries. Disbelief. Anger. Depression. Acceptance. Optimism. More disbelief. Then true acceptance. But he couldn’t let it end like this for him. This wasn’t what his life was going to be.
Everyone feels like that at some stage, a counsellor told him. It’s a natural reaction. But acceptance will come. You’ll learn to make a different sort of life for yourself.
He didn’t want a different sort of life. He wanted his old life back. He wanted to be able to play cricket again. He wanted to be with Gracie.
He’d been in the clinic in Melbourne for just two days when Stuart Phillips walked into his room. He didn’t know it then, but Nina had been in touch with the academy from the earliest days after the accident. Stuart arrived without warning, calm, strong, tough. Tom cried to see him, cried in a way he hadn’t done in front of Nina. She’d done enough crying for them both. Then he’d got angry, embarrassed, ashamed of himself, his body, as if what had happened had been deliberate, his fault.
‘Why are you here, Stuart? I’m not a cricketer any more, am I?’
‘Not for the moment, no. But you’re still my friend.’
‘You’ve got a job to do back at the academy. Why are you wasting time here?’
‘I’ve taken leave. They owe me weeks of holiday. They begged me to come and see you, get me out from under their feet.’
Tom only found out months afterwards that Stuart had taken extended leave-without-pay. He’d brought get-well messages from everyone at the academy, from his wife, from his daughters, Tom’s surrogate family in Adelaide.
‘I’ve been reading up on your injuries,’ he said that day.
‘Fairly short book, I’d say. You’re crippled. The end.’
‘What kind of attitude is that?’
‘A realistic one.’
‘You know there’s anot
her clinic in Melbourne that’s at the forefront in spinal research?’
‘No, I didn’t. Will I take a stroll over to them, if I ever learn to stand up on my own two feet again?’
‘You could, if you were behaving like a petulant kid. Or you could get there sooner and in the comfort of an ambulance, like most of their patients. Or clients, as I think they call them these days.’
‘Sooner?’
‘As in next week. I know someone there. He knows a few other people there. Between everyone we both know, we can get you admitted, get a program started before the month is out.’
Tom laughed. Not a nice laugh. ‘Great. Terrific. And pay with what? My grateful smile?’
‘I hope you will be grateful. I hope you will smile.’ He dropped the teasing then. ‘Tom, you had travel insurance. You were also insured by the academy. We’ll get you into the clinic. That’ll be the easy bit. It’s once you’re there that the hard work really starts.’
The understatement of the century. Tom had once thought the hardest he’d ever physically worked was during his time at the academy. There had been constant gym work, beach runs at dawn, intense exercise programs, lifting weights, bench presses, sit-ups, repetitions. Those workouts were the equivalent of lifting a pencil compared to what he was now asking his body to do. He soon discovered more pain than he’d thought possible. There were exploratory operations, countless procedures, tests, scans, X-rays.
Until, nine months after he returned to Melbourne, he was given good news. The damage to his lower spinal cord wasn’t as severe as first diagnosed. The effects of the initial spinal shock, combined with the extensive bruising, swelling and tissue damage he’d suffered in the accident, had caused initial paralysis, but in the weeks and months since there had been positive signs of nerve regeneration. With time, more treatment, painstaking rehabilitation, there was a strong possibility he would have a gradual return of feeling in his legs, followed by movement. How much movement remained to be seen.
He read every report, every diagnosis, every prognosis, until he realised he didn’t want to know the facts. Instead, he started concentrating on his feelings instead, picturing his body healing, his muscles getting stronger, the swelling around his spine disappearing, imagining himself standing, moving, walking, fixing on a mental picture day after day until it was as if he was returning his body to working order by sheer force of will.
Did he think about Gracie much during those days? The truth was no. He blocked it if his mind ever drifted towards her. The only way he knew how to achieve anything, to get any movement back, was to remain focused, optimistic, think only positive thoughts, surround himself as much as possible with people who believed in him. She didn’t. None of her family did either. They’d all been silent, through guilt, shame, discomfort, whatever their reasons were. He would do this without them. He would do it for himself.
While he was working physically, Stuart started work on him from another direction.
‘So you can’t go back on the cricket field yet. I won’t say never. Never say never. But you can still watch the game. Watch hundreds of games. Study them. Analyse the play. Learn everything there is to know about the science and psychology of cricket.’
‘Why?’
‘A sport doesn’t just need players, Tom. It needs coaches, tacticians —’
‘A coach in a wheelchair. That’s inspiring.’
‘I didn’t say coach. What was I for thirty years before I got coaxed out of it?’
‘A journalist.’
‘You’re a smart kid, Tom. A smart man, not a kid. You’re analytical. You’re graceful with words.’ He noticed Tom’s surprise. ‘I read the application letter you sent to the academy. I also saw your school results. High marks in English, History, Classical Studies. If you hadn’t been a sportsman, you’d have gone to university, am I right? You’re a listener, a watcher, a quick learner, you don’t miss a trick. You were good on the field and I think you’d be just as good off the field. I want you to think about studying for a journalism degree.’
It wasn’t just Stuart who supported him through the months of study that followed, the months of constant pain, therapy, hospital visits, training and more pain. Nina was always there. She had moved from Templeton Hall the weekend they returned from Italy, renting a house just three streets from the spinal clinic. She was beside him at every step of his treatment, and as enthusiastic about the journalism degree as Stuart had been.
They didn’t talk about the Templetons. Their silence must have been as hard for her, but she never raised the subject. That suited him. A conversation about the Templetons would lead to talk about Gracie and that would bring a different kind of pain.
Then one day, out of the blue, she mentioned them. Mentioned Gracie. It had been a difficult day, of setbacks, of fighting the depression that sometimes threatened to overwhelm him, of attempting to come to terms with what lay ahead for him.
She’d been in his room, tidying the pile of books beside his bed, when she spoke. ‘Tom, I need to ask you something. About Gracie.’
He’d tensed.
She seemed to be having trouble finding the right words. ‘If you could get in touch with her again, would you?’
He shook his head, straight away. Why would he want to? Hadn’t Gracie made her feelings clear? And what did he have to offer her now, in any case?
That was the last time they’d spoken about her.
It was Stuart who eventually forced him to confront his feelings, eight weeks after The Day. Two years after the accident. The day he’d taken his first step unaided, after months of forcing himself, inch by inch, to move with the help of frames, of supports, of a physiotherapist on either side. He’d expected it to be a day of celebration. It had been a let-down. Yes, he’d taken that step, but what next? He had to learn to take another step. Another. The pain and effort involved was all he could see, stretching out for months, years, ahead of him.
In his room in the independent living section of the clinic – he hated the term; there was nothing independent about him – he sat in the darkness of his living room. He heard a knock at the door, didn’t answer, heard the door open, knew it was Stuart. He heard the fridge open. Nina had brought champagne the day he’d walked. He hadn’t opened it yet.
‘This stuff goes off if you don’t drink it, you know.’
‘Is that right?’
‘You’re cheerful.’
‘Bursting with cheer, Stuart. I couldn’t be happier. Life couldn’t be better.’
‘Stop the bullshit, Donovan.’
Tom pushed a book off the table and shouted then. ‘You stop the fucking bullshit. What is this, some kind of game for you? A project before retirement? Get the kid’s hopes up and too bad when he crashes? It was fun to watch?’
‘More bullshit. Start talking sense or I’m leaving.’
‘So leave.’
‘No. Not till you’ve apologised.’
‘That’s not what you said.’
‘I’m right. You will make a good journalist. You listen.’ He sat down, opened the bottle, poured two glasses. ‘What’s happened, Tom?’
‘Nothing new.’
‘What’s bugging you, then? If it’s nothing new, it must be something old.’
Tom shrugged. Out of nowhere, a memory came to him. Spencer shrugging as a kid. Spencer as an adult, with them in Italy. He thought of Gracie. Not just in Italy, but in London, Scotland, Ireland, France. Gracie in bed with him, laughing with him, talking to him. In the darkness of his flat, with Stuart sitting there, quietly waiting, Tom started to talk. He told him everything. About Europe, about Gracie, about the message passed to him through Nina that she never wanted to see him again. That she couldn’t cope with him like this.
For a minute or two afterwards, Stuart was quiet. When he did speak his words were measured. ‘Is it that she didn’t tell you herself, or that she said it at all?’
‘Both.’ It was a strange relief to be admitting this to someone
. ‘I want to hate her and I can’t. I just don’t understand it. It doesn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense when Nina first told me and it still doesn’t.’
‘That any woman could be immune to your charms?’
He smiled briefly. ‘That she would feel like that. That she wouldn’t tell me herself.’
‘She’d been in the accident too, Tom. Not only that, she was the driver. She must have been in terrible shock.’
‘At first, yes. But after? When she was back in London? Still nothing.’
‘You never heard anything from her?’
Tom shook his head.
‘And it’s still eating you up, two years later?’
A nod.
‘So write to her yourself. Ask her.’
‘I did.’
‘And?
‘I never heard back.’ He didn’t admit to Stuart that he’d written not just one letter, but two, waiting and waiting and hearing nothing back. ‘It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? If she’d cared, if any of them had cared enough to find out how I was —’
‘And you’re sure they haven’t?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘In that case, you have to forget about her, Tom. Accept that you made a mistake about her and get on with your life. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last. No one on earth gets through life without a broken heart.’
‘My heart had to be broken as well as everything else?’
‘Looks like it.’
‘Drew the short straw with this lifetime, didn’t I?’
‘Too soon to tell, I’d say. You might feel better once you see your name in print.’
‘When I what?’
‘When you see your name in print in the sports pages of The Age.’ It was the city’s main broadsheet newspaper.
‘The Age wants me to write for them?’
‘A short column, once a month. Just for a trial period. They’re trying for younger readers. They want observations from a young cricket fan. I suggested you.’
At Home with the Templetons Page 43
