Being Here

by Barry Jonsberg

  Carly and her parents visit me. They come camouflaged behind a mass of blooms. Birnam wood has come to Dunsinane. A nurse relieves them of their burden and they sit by my bed. An awkward silence follows. I cannot break it.

  ‘We are so sorry, Mrs Cartwright,’ says Carly’s mother finally. I cannot remember her name. She smiles, but her eyes are filmed with tears. The room’s lights are reflected in them. She takes my hand. Everyone wants to take my hand. Perhaps it reassures them I am still here. ‘We feel … responsible for what happened. For a few dreadful moments we thought it was the food. You know. That we had poisoned you. Botulism, or something. And then the paramedics said they thought it might have been a stroke and we, well we got to thinking that maybe it had all been too much for you, that we had brought this on somehow and we just felt dreadful about it, I can’t tell you how dreadful we felt, still feel, but so relieved you seem to be on the mend …’

  A dam has been breached and the guilt pours out. I want to tell her that I am the one who should feel responsible, that I nearly brought tragedy into their ordered lives, infected their home with the disease of death. But words are no longer my slaves. I smile and hope she listens to that.

  Carly hovers in the background. I am impatient to see her, but must receive her parents’ apology first. It takes an eternity. The father feels he must give an encore to his wife’s performance. Finally, they bring the curtain down. Her mother bends and kisses me on the cheek.

  ‘We’ll leave you with Carly for a few moments, Mrs Cartwright. The nurse said we shouldn’t stay long, that you need rest. But we’ll be back to see you very soon.’

  They leave as if having shed a burden other than the weight of flowers.

  Carly sits on a chair beside my bed There is something different about her and it is not just the concern she wears. Or the make-up, which has made a reappearance. She attempts a smile and that is when I see it. Her teeth. Strong, white, even and free.

  ‘Hey, Mrs C,’ she says. ‘Had the braces off yesterday. Whatya reckon?’ I think she must have read the direction of my gaze and the widening of my eyes. She parts her lips, offers an uninterrupted view. I want to tell her I am pleased for her and saddened for myself. That I miss her iridescent smile. I nod instead.

  She edges her chair closer.

  ‘Got to tell you something. Josh has a gig tonight. It’s major. Support band for a big name playing at this club in the city and he’s hyper about it. So last night, he goes, “Do you want to come with us in the van with the band?” and I tell him I can’t make it, that I’m coming in to see you. And he’s, like, “What?” Doesn’t compute with him, that I’d sooner visit you than be a hanger-on in a club. So I say there’ll be other times.’

  I would feel guilty, but it’s obvious she’s building to something.

  ‘So he says maybe I should get my priorities right, that there’ll be other times when I could visit you. Then he comes out with something really shitty, but I can’t remember exactly the words he used. It was more what he nearly said, you know what I mean? Anyway, he hints there are other chicks who’d be only too happy to come with the band, only he doesn’t quite say it like that. So I say to him, “Would you do anything for me, Josh? Like without thinking about it?” and he goes “What are you on about?” as if it’s the dumbest thing anyone has ever asked. So I say …’ She laughs and it is pure and white. ‘I say, “Piss off, Josh.” Just like that. Out of the blue. You should have seen his face. It was like I’d smacked him.’

  I look for sadness and regret in her face, but detect no signs.

  ‘And you know what, Mrs C? I’m glad I said it. Things had … I don’t know. Got unbalanced, I guess. You made me see that. I was way too grateful for any attention he gave and that meant he had all the power. I mean I’d given him the power. And he was prepared to use it. Not only that, he was enjoying using it. So … well, maybe we’ll make up and maybe we won’t. But if we do make up then it’ll be on my terms as well, not just his. And if we don’t, then that’s okay, too. Seriously. I reckon I’m developing a mind of my own. Are you proud of me, Mrs C?’

  I am. I wish I could tell her. I try to write it on my face.

  A nurse enters and tells Carly to leave. I cannot let her go. Not yet. So I grab her hand. Just that small movement drains me. I summon all my reserves of will, channel it into my mouth. My tongue is a slab of meat and my lips are dead. I force them to a semblance of life.

  ‘Story,’ I say. The word comes out maimed and my voice is cracked and dry. I summon a little extra energy. ‘Machine. Carly.’

  Her face clouds.

  ‘Hey, Mrs C. There’s time to finish your story. When you get some strength back, okay?’

  ‘No.’ This time, my voice is firm. It needs to be. Time is drifting, slipping away. ‘Tomorrow. Story.’

  ‘Jeez, Mrs C …’ ‘Tomorrow.’

  She reads my face for a minute or so. I do not know what script she deciphers, but it must be enough. She nods.

  ‘Sure. Tomorrow. I’ll be here. And I’ll bring my machine. Okay? Satisfied?’

  I close my eyes.

  ‘Oh, I nearly forgot. I brought you a present.’

  I open my eyes again.

  ‘It’s a lousy photograph. I look like a total dork. Anyway, we bought a frame and everything, on our way in. I mean, you did ask, Mrs C. God knows why you want it. But here you are.’

  I bring the frame close to my face. My right hand trembles under its weight.

  Carly smiles at me from within the photograph. Her teeth are enclosed in a rainbow. The frame is thinly plated silver and has small hearts embossed at regular intervals around the perimeter. I close my eyes and hug it to my chest.

  CHAPTER 20

  THE RED LIGHT BLINKS.

  Carly brings the machine close to my face. My voice is little more than a whisper. But inside my head, the words march bright, clear and confident. They follow my orders. They line up in perfect ranks. Not one rebels.

  I examine the images behind my eyes. I see it all from the outside. The woman in the dark dress is crumpled on the earth, one hand to her neck. A purple bruise is flowering there. The girl is on her knees in the dust. She has hair the colour of midnight. It catches the sun. Her face is fresh and unlined, though if one looks carefully there is knowledge amongst the innocence. And one can trace the journey of that face through time to come. As the years unroll, the knowledge will spread, a canker on the bloom, until innocence has fled forever. Becomes a memory only. But now … now the bruise is in its first flush. Now she is between two worlds, clinging to each as they slide inexorably apart. The boy stands, his eyes downcast. His hair is a mass of dark curls. There is tension in his limbs as if he is on a hair-trigger of flight.

  The world is inside my head. Past and present and future are rolled together. Everything is inside my head.

  The woman speaks.

  ‘You cannot have both, Leah. You cannot embrace God with one arm and the Devil with the other. You cannot be with me and … consort with abominations. Choose, Leah. Choose between the light and the dark. Choose one and cast out the other. For the love of God and the love of me.’

  The boy turns his eyes towards the mother and daughter, regards them for a moment. Then he takes a step forward. The woman recoils, slithers away a metre in a puff of dust, clutches at the crucifix around her neck. The girl raises her face. He bends and traces with a finger the snail track of tears on her cheeks, puts the finger to his lips and tastes the saltiness there. He turns and walks away. Towards the looming apple trees in the distance. He doesn’t look back.

  The girl scrambles to her feet and runs after him, stops, turns. The bonds that tie her spirit tear and split. Agony is written on her body.

  ‘Choose, Leah,’ her mother croaks.

  The boy shrinks and disappears in shadow. The trees swallow him. The girl holds out a hand to her mother, helps her to her feet. They stand for a moment, fingers entwined. Then the girl drops her head and her hand, turns
and walks away. She moves slowly, follows the boy into darkness.

  The air is cool and sweet beneath the trees. It smells of fruit. Apples lie on the ground and some are bruised, discoloured. Beneath the scent of growing things there is the tinge of corruption and decay. She walks on, dappled in light and shadow.

  The boy sits halfway down the avenue. He splits a blade of grass between his nails and doesn’t look up as she approaches. The girl sits beside him, plucks a blade herself. They work at green flesh in silence.

  ‘I love you, Adam,’ she says finally.

  He keeps his head bent over his work.

  ‘I know,’ he says.

  ‘And I love my mother.’

  ‘I know.’

  She throws the shredded blade away and buries her face in her hands. Sobs rack her. The boy puts an arm around her shoulders and draws her to him. She folds into the crook between his chin and shoulder. He feels the cold drip of tears. Then he lowers her to the ground so they are lying face to face. He kisses her gently, feathers her cheeks and lips. She puts a hand behind his head and draws him closer, kisses him harder. She feels his body against hers, presses herself into his flesh as if she would be absorbed by him. She loves for the last time.

  The sun dips further in the sky, peeks below the level of trees. Her skin tingles with its caress. She reaches out and brushes the boy’s hair away from his eyes.

  ‘I cannot choose,’ she says. Her voice is not wet with emotion, but bruised with despair. ‘I cannot.’

  He sits up and takes her hand in his.

  ‘I understand,’ he says. ‘Which is why I must. Come with me, Leah.’

  They stand, walk further along the avenue. He keeps her hand in his. Shadows change the landscape.

  Darkness sprouts from the ground and trees thicken and crowd. The path they tread narrows, forces them together. Branches droop, the leaves and their shadows merge. Dark walls rise.

  The boy stops. The girl glances over her shoulder. She can no longer see the pathway through trees. There is no sound, except their own breathing. Their breaths mist against the darkness. The air is tingly with cold.

  ‘Here,’ says the boy, reaching forward and parting the darkness. He steps through. The girl follows. Leaves caress her as they part. She moves into light.

  They stand on the summit of a mountain. A dizzying drop yawns beneath. On all sides, ice and snow glitters. The girl glances at her feet, a step from the brink. She shuffles backwards. The sky is powdered blue, dusted with wisps of cloud. The sun is swollen gold. Mountains crowd on all sides, but her eyes are drawn from them. Down, down, down into a patch of green in the valley below.

  A winding road, as delicate as a pencil line on green paper, leads to a castle, its walls buttery in light. A thin ribbon of moat sparkles. The turrets, four, five, six, point towards Heaven. Each is capped with red. From this height she can see no movement, but the girl screws her eyes and sees thin windows stencilled on the walls. She knows people move there and they are happy.

  ‘It’s as beautiful as I remember,’ she says.

  It is a page from a book. It is a page from a distant childhood.

  The boy lets go of her hand and steps towards the edge. She moves to stop him, but her limbs won’t obey. He turns to face her, his back to the brink. He puts a finger to his lips.

  ‘Everything you can imagine is real,’ he says. ‘Remember that, Leah. And know, too, that I will always be with you. Inside your head. Nothing, no one, can take that away.’

  She wants to scream, but cannot. She wants to move, but cannot.

  The boy spreads his arms wide, raises his face to the heavens. His face glows with the kiss of the sun. Then he topples slowly backwards. Time stutters. Stops, moves again. For a brief moment their eyes lock. And he is gone.

  She finds her body again, rushes to the edge, drops to her knees. Far below, the boy’s body floats and shrinks in air. He turns leisurely as he drops, becomes smaller and smaller, a dark smudge against the green fields with their pencilled roads. He becomes a speck.

  He becomes nothing.

  A scream tears at her throat, but doesn’t come out. The valley below is washed in shade. The castle swims and fades, eaten by the dark. It is as if a page has turned, the final page of a story and the endpaper is black. The mist of her breath dissolves and dies. She is on her knees in the orchard. One world has returned and another has gone forever. She knows it has gone forever. An apple lies on the ground. Something has burrowed beneath its flesh. Its perfection is blemished by a dark bruise that she knows will spread and spread until all that was green and good is consumed by darkness and time.

  The girl staggers to her feet. The world is muted, the birds do not sing. She turns towards home, towards her mother and towards her future. Nothing, she knows, will ever be the same.

  ‘Let. Me. Listen.’

  The words sound faint to my ears. I wonder if anything I have said has been picked up by her machine. I need to know if the story is out there, beyond my head. I need to know.

  Carly has an expression on her face I have difficulty reading. It might be pity. It might be horror. Her hand trembles as she presses buttons on her machine. Then a stranger’s voice scratches at the air. It is a thin voice and it chips at words, extracts them one by one. Barely a minute elapses before the sound subsides into nothingness.

  I have spoken no more than four or five sentences. But they are enough. For me, if not for Carly. If I had the energy, I would lament the disparity between what is in my head and the poor, withered version that whispers at my ear. It is cruel evidence that everything has been stripped from me. Words were the last, and the most precious, gift to desert me.

  Most precious, save one.

  But it is enough.

  I close my eyes. I am so tired. I barely feel the brush of Carly’s lips against my cheek, barely hear her promise to see me again tomorrow.

  I sleep with guilt. I wanted to say goodbye to the child. The girl with a boy living in her head.

  But perhaps it is better this way.

  CHAPTER 21

  IT IS A TROUBLED NIGHT. Images, memories and dreams crowd me.

  I wait for something, but I do not know what it is. I am no longer afraid. I am … curious.

  The blinds in my room are closed against the dawn. It lends the air a sinister aspect, as if time has frozen. Or as if I have frozen and somewhere the world goes on without me. Even the sounds from outside are muted.

  The doctor with the pockmarked face and thin moustache bursts in. It jolts me from an almost permanent doze. He is followed by a group of people in white coats. They assemble around the end of my bed. I cannot make out individual faces, but they appear impossibly young. Can they be medically trained? It seems absurd. But then everyone is young nowadays.

  The doctor pats my hand and utters meaningless greetings. His smile is practised. Then he peers into my eyes and takes my pulse. I suspect we both wonder if there is a point to this. He turns to the group. They gaze back, a row of pale faces suspended above clipboards. One or two shuffle from foot to foot.

  ‘This patient,’ says the doctor, ‘has suffered a stroke. There are two types of stroke. They are?’

  Nearly everyone raises a hand. The question, apparently, is easy.

  ‘Yes, Dr Patton.’

  ‘Ischaemic and haemorrhagic, sir.’

  ‘Correct. And the difference?’

  He chooses someone else.

  ‘Sir. An ischaemic stroke develops when a blood clot blocks a blood vessel in the brain. A haemorrhagic stroke develops when an artery in the brain leaks or bursts, causing bleeding inside the brain or near the surface of the brain.’

  ‘Very good.’

  I’m not sure it is very good, but I cannot say anything.

  ‘And how can we tell the difference between them? Yes, Dr Singh.’

  ‘A CT scan, possibly followed by an MRI, sir.’

  ‘Excellent. Mrs …’ He examines his own clipboard. ‘… Cartwright h
as suffered an ischaemic stroke, the lesser of two evils. What treatment would be appropriate once her condition is diagnosed?’

  This group is knowledgeable. Once again, nearly all hands are raised. But one figure detaches from the others, moves to the blinds. No one pays attention. I see him dimly, across the room.

  ‘A tissue plasminogen activator, sir. Common aspirin can also be used with a t-PA. Or aspirin combined with some other antiplatelet medication.’

  ‘Aspirin and t-PA together, doctor?’

  There is something in his tone that strikes caution in the group. It’s as if they are wary of being tripped up. No one replies.

  ‘The use of aspirin within twenty-four hours of t-PA can be very dangerous for a patient,’ says the pockmarked doctor. There is triumph in his voice. He has produced a trump card. The group of white coats sags a little. ‘Anyway, time passes. Let’s move on.’

  He leaves my room without acknowledging me. The group files past my bed. A few of them smile. I would smile back, but one side of my mouth droops uselessly. The door closes. Somewhere a clock ticks.

  I let the absence of voices wash over me. It is a luxurious bath. Nothing out there is as vivid as the contents of my mind. I retreat into it.

  The images are jumbled. They flood over me in a waterfall. My mother’s death when I was thirty-nine, still living at home, the orchards wilted and baking and dying in the sun. I found her kneeling at the side of her bed. Her face was radiant with joy, as if the man on the cross had stepped down and personally ushered her into light. I cried for three days, wandering through an empty house. Pastor Bauer, grey now and lined, argued to the town council that I would make a perfect librarian. The library itself, surrounded by books, endless days of inhaling the dust of covers, inhaling stories. The journeys I took between countless pages, though never again did I journey as I did with Adam. Millions of words. Millions of beautiful words. Friends gained and friends lost. A plan, hatched one summer with a new woman at the library, to visit Italy and England. I so desperately wanted to get back to the London in my head. It never happened, though the reason is gone forever. I try, but I cannot remember. And men. Yes, one or two men showed interest in me. One even proposed. And I thought – I remember thinking – should I accept? Is it better to accept second best than spend a lifetime alone?