After the Fall

by Norman, Charity

  Pamela and Jean tut, and I clutch him closer. ‘Finny’s not dead, sweetheart. They’ve just made him sleep very deeply while he gets better.’

  ‘He had a big pipe shoved up his nose. That would really really hurt. Someone should pull that out.’

  My throat tightens. ‘That’s to help him breathe. It doesn’t hurt.’

  Charlie shrugs uncertainly. I can see his mind whirring, full of questions he’s afraid to ask. ‘So . . . no, I think he’s probably dead. They cut his brains out.’

  As they stand to leave, the Colberts offer babysitting and meals and lamb feeding. They promise to come back whenever we need them. They mean it.

  ‘Odd thing.’ Pamela hesitates, her hand on the doorknob. ‘There’s a message on our phone from someone at Child, Youth and Family.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘They want to talk to us about Finn’s accident. But what’s the point of that? We weren’t even here.’

  ‘They’d like to know if we’re a dysfunctional family,’ I say, uncomfortably aware that we are precisely that. ‘You know, the sort who would grab their five-year-old and chuck him off a balcony.’

  There’s a chorus of scandalised tongue-clicking. Jean’s eyebrows shoot right off the top of his head and hover in the air. ‘Extraordinary!’

  ‘Ooh!’ His wife pushes up her sleeves, wearing her hungry seagull expression. ‘I can’t wait to call them back.’

  On the fifth day, a team begins to wake Finn. They’re at pains to explain that this might be a very slow process. He could be confused or agitated initially, and there may be false starts. If he seems too distressed they’ll put him under again and wait until tomorrow. Kit and I are on tenterhooks.

  ‘We might even have our Finn back by tonight,’ says Kit hopefully, as we drive together to the hospital. He looks pinched and anxious, which is how I feel.

  If he’s still in there, I think, neurotically searching for wood to touch.

  They varied the drugs last night, but begin to try to bring Finn to the surface at about midday. We’ve dug out the boys’ Mr Men tape, and a play specialist comes along to help. She has the tape running quietly.

  It’s a slow process, all right. I see Finn’s eyes open for the first time, just slits because they are still grossly swollen. He begins to wail, jerking his limbs and trying to tear at the line in his arm. He sounds like an animal in pain. I want to shout at them to stop, to leave him in peace.

  Kit takes his hand. I can hear the urgency in his voice. ‘C’mon, Finny. C’mon. Please, my friend. Come back.’

  Finn makes an odd gargling sound. Then his eyes close, though his body is still tense. I think they’ve increased the anaesthetic just enough to put him under.

  Sometime later, they try again. This time the eyes look blankly at me, at Kit, at the strangers who surround him. He doesn’t seem to know us at all. We talk to him, talk gibberish, trying to sound calm and jovial, but he just doesn’t register at all. It’s deeply disturbing. Then his eyes close.

  Making an excuse, I run out of the ward. I stumble blindly down the corridor, lock myself into a toilet and have a meltdown. By the time I return, the team have disappeared and a nurse is monitoring Finn’s machinery.

  ‘They reckon it’s up to Finn now,’ says Kit. ‘They’re going to do more tests and things tomorrow.’

  As day wears into evening, sheer screaming panic begins to take hold of me. ‘Perhaps his soul is already gone,’ I whisper, and feel the answering pressure of Kit’s hand in mine.

  ‘Our boy’s there all right,’ he insists doggedly. ‘I can hear him yelling in there. I can feel all that craziness and fun. I’m not moving. I’m going to sit right here in this chair until he comes back to me.’

  Kit’s passionate faith keeps me from collapse, but I can’t hear Finn yelling, not at all. I imagine the years passing: Finn as an adolescent, a grown man; a thirty-year-old body, needing to be shaved and fed and have his toenails cut, but unable to die. An empty Finn, with no trace of the wicked smile and brilliant eyes.

  At eight o’clock, Dad phones.

  ‘No news,’ I say unsteadily.

  ‘Charlie is going to bed now. He’s been quite upset. I wondered when you’ll be coming home? You’ll be needing to rest, yourselves.’

  I say I’ll call him back. Then I lean into Kit. We pinned such hopes on this day.

  ‘Go on home,’ Kit says, nuzzling my hair. ‘Charlie’s going to wake up in the night and he needs one of us there at least.’

  ‘I want to stay with you. With Finn.’

  Kit fumbles clumsily in his pocket and hands me the car keys. ‘Go home and get some rest. Witch doctor’s orders.’

  It’s awful, leaving my husband and son among the lights and buzzers and death. In the end Kit walks me to the door of ICU and more or less pushes me out. I drive home in a fog of horror and exhaustion. We’re starting a different life, with a different Finn. I know the old Finn isn’t coming back. He is lost.

  Someone has written in the chapel book: You bastard. Why create such brilliance if all along you were planning to destroy it?

  I stop by our letterbox at the sight of a misshapen parcel. Even in the starlight, I recognise Louisa’s oversized handwriting. I open it in the kitchen where Dad is waiting for me.

  ‘Slippers, books . . . posh colouring pencils . . . a magic set! My sister is amazing.’ There’s a card as well, signed by everyone including a rather revolting slobber mark from Thundering Theo. I leave it all on the table and slump over the stove, haunted by Finn’s empty eyes.

  ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ asks Dad, resting a cup of tea beside me.

  ‘Head injuries.’ I blow out my cheeks. ‘They’re my Room 101; my greatest fear.’

  ‘But the people you work with are bound to be at the higher end of the scale?’

  ‘True. And a lot of them recover, though it can take years. But Dad, some never come back. I talk to the families and they say it just isn’t the same person. They’re mourning for the parent or wife or child they’ve lost forever.’ I describe Gareth, the pilot, who is soon to be rehabilitated home to his grieving parents. ‘I don’t think he’ll ever attain anything like normality. Thirty years old, and he’s condemned to a twilight life.’

  ‘Will his parents be able to manage?’

  ‘They aren’t young. They’ll care for him until they drop, and then . . . well. There aren’t many options.’

  ‘The doctors are optimistic for Finn, though?’

  ‘Ah, well. They’re feeling pretty pleased with the way the trauma was managed—and yes, it was managed brilliantly. I can see that now, although I was in a flat spin at the time. Really impressive. But a success from their point of view could still be a tragedy from ours.’

  ‘We’ll soon know, either way.’

  ‘It was horrible, Dad. He opened his eyes but there was nobody in there. The lights weren’t . . .’ I swallow a sob. ‘Lights weren’t on. I don’t know if the lights will ever come on again.’

  ‘He was always a bright little spark,’ insists Dad. ‘Such a clever look in those eyes, right from the day he was born! He’ll come back, I’m sure.’

  We sit by the stove until the early hours, talking about many things but always coming back to Finn. I ask how Sacha’s been faring.

  ‘Doing well.’ Dad looks pleased. ‘She got up today. We went for a stroll in the garden. I think she’s coming right.’

  Exhausted, I lean back in my chair and shut my eyes. ‘For now.’

  The minutes tick by. Muffin is delighted by our night-owl hours. She comes rolling out of her basket and leans against me. I’ve gone back to worrying about Finn when Dad speaks again.

  ‘When do you plan to tell Philip and Sacha that they’re father and daughter?’

  ‘Um . . .’ I’m flustered by the question. ‘I don’t know. Sometimes I’ve thought it would help, maybe she’d stop fretting and fantasising about her father, but all hell would break loose. Lou’s a pretty emotiona
l person.’

  ‘But one day?’

  ‘I hope so. When their children are grown up. It’s like you said, Dad. There’s so many people’s happiness at stake.’

  ‘Does Kit know?’

  ‘Yes, Kit knows. I had a fit of conscience before our wedding. I swore him to secrecy.’

  ‘I’m glad he’s in the picture.’ Dad looks shamefaced. ‘I was a bit jealous when Kit first arrived on the scene.’

  ‘You, jealous?’ I can’t imagine my father having such an ungenerous emotion.

  He wags a finger. ‘Not because of you; because of Sacha! I’d grown used to being the male figure in her life, and suddenly there was this funny, clever chap who seemed determined to be a father to her. And what’s more, he was doing a pretty good job of it.’

  I smile, remembering those early days. ‘He was brave to take on Sacha.’

  ‘He succeeded, though.’ Muffin begins dribbling onto Dad’s knee, and he manhandles her back into the basket. ‘But all that matters now, tonight, is Finn. We’d both better get some shut-eye. How about an infusion of chamomile to help us sleep?’

  I’ve been in bed ten minutes when Charlie appears, clutching Blue Blanket as he picks his way through the dark. I pull back the duvet and he clambers in. For the rest of the night I drift in and out of sleep, haunted by dreams of a soft-cheeked child with windblown curls, dragging his blanket, endlessly searching an alien landscape for a lost twin. I can hear his thin cries in the wilderness.

  Horrible sounds shatter the weird desperation of my dream, vibrating and bellowing right next to my ear, sending my heartbeat way off the scale. I sit up with a yell, then realise my phone’s receiving a text. The clock reads 5:25.

  I turn on the light and reach for the phone. It takes me a few seconds to focus.

  HES BACK!!!!! AWAKE AND TALKING

  I screech. I scream the place down. I kiss Charlie—who isn’t quite awake, despite my hullabaloo—then fall out of bed and stumble onto the landing. Dad shoots out of the spare bedroom, cannoning into me.

  ‘Good news or bad?’ he gasps, clutching at my arm.

  I show him the message, and he dances a jig before hurtling into Sacha’s room. ‘He’s awake!’ I hear him switching on her light. ‘Beautiful girl, your brother is awake! Now up you get. I want you in the car in five minutes. You hear me?

  As he speaks, another text arrives: Says get a move on and bring everyone.

  Other people’s sons win the interschool cross-country. Other people’s sons have a reading age of thirteen. Other people’s sons are All Blacks in the making.

  My son is awake and talking. It’s a bloody miracle.

  I didn’t know Charlie could run so fast. Never seen him do it before.

  Dad, Sacha and I have been in a tearing hurry since we got Kit’s message, but Charlie is in another league altogether. He rolls off my bed, slides down the banister and piles into the car in his pyjamas. All the way to hospital he’s mouthing some secret conversation to himself, jiggling legs betraying his agitation.

  My phone goes off in the car, and Dad reads out the text. ‘It’s Kit. He says: Asleep again, drugs still in system, doctors very happy though.’

  ‘No!’ poor Charlie shrieks in panic, and then begins to wail brokenheartedly. ‘No! Don’t let him go to sleep!’

  Sitting next to him in the back seat, Sacha tries to soothe her brother. ‘It’s okay, buddy. He’s not in a coma any more, just asleep.’

  But Charlie doesn’t believe her. He’s inconsolable. I’ve barely parked before he’s out, racing around the car in his pyjamas, ordering us all to come on come on, tugging at my hand as I lock the door and dragging me across the car park and into the building. Dad isn’t as quick as he used to be. When we turn into the long corridor that leads to ICU Charlie drops my hand—he knows the way from here—and sprints for the finishing line. He’s a man with a mission, and nothing is going to get in his way. The door to the unit is locked but to my astonishment he presses the buzzer and bangs the flat of his hand on the glass of the door. Someone must take pity on him, because a moment later the door opens a crack and he disappears inside.

  Sacha breaks into a trot. ‘D’you mind?’ she calls over her shoulder.

  ‘Go!’ Dad waves her away, and she’s off at the starter’s pistol. ‘Go, go!’

  Dad and I have to ring the buzzer too, and it’s several minutes before we’re allowed in and round the corner to Finn’s cubicle. Hearing eager chatter, we slide in quietly. Sacha is perched on the bed, cradling Finn’s hand. Charlie’s bouncing around on Kit’s knee, talking, talking, talking. Between the three, still tangled in a mass of wires and tubes, lies a drowsy child with a shaved head and a plaster cast on one arm. A knitted pirate nestles under his ear.

  Kit catches my eye and smiles. He looks weary and tearful and euphoric, all at the same time. His arms are full of Charlie.

  ‘Then Bleater jumped right over the fence,’ squeaks Charlie, who seems ready to explode with joy, ‘and then she was a very naughty girl because do you know what she did? She went and ate up all Mum’s pot plants, yum! And then she did a wee on the verandah, and it made a luverley waterfall’— he waves his arms—‘all the way down the steps, tinkle—tinkle—tinkle!’

  Finn giggles quietly. He seems to think for a moment, and I hold my breath. Then he speaks—not loud, but clear: ‘Bleater should’ve peed on the lemon tree.’

  Charlie is laughing uproariously when he spots Dad and me. He jumps off Kit’s lap, pointing. ‘Mum, he’s not dead!’

  ‘Hello, Finny.’ I sit down on the bed, careful to avoid the wires.

  The mutilated head swivels, and painfully bruised eyes regard me for several seconds. I have time to wonder whether he doesn’t know who I am, whether he is terribly damaged after all. Then he holds out his good hand, reaching frantically as though trying to crawl into my arms. Finally he bursts into noisy tears.

  The intensive care unit is a war zone, and the enemy is death itself. We later hear that at two o’clock that morning, a mother of three teenagers had succumbed to meningitis. But at five, a small boy began to wake.

  Forty

  By the time Finn moves into the child health unit, he’s heartily bored of hospital. He has no idea how he got there although he stubbornly pretends to remember the helicopter ride. The children’s ward is much jollier than ICU: bright colours and toys, and a hundred times more relaxed. Various doctors explain that although the signs are good, Finn isn’t out of the woods. He’ll need monitoring and follow-ups, and further surgery for the metal plate to be removed. For now though, it’s enough that he is with us at all.

  The staff do a wonderful job, but they have us under surveillance like monkeys in a cage, constantly monitoring how we behave and how the children react to us. I feel as though our every gesture, every word is being observed. Stopping to ask a question at the nurses’ desk one time, I actually spot some notes: Mum and Dad arrived 8 am with jigsaw puzzle. Greeted Finn appropriately. He seemed very pleased to see them.

  How nice, I think caustically. What a very generous observation.

  Kura has hung around, of course. She plays Ludo with Charlie while I try to look nonchalant. She gets him talking. Bless him, the little chap is flattered by all the attention and tells her in numbingly minute detail all about his new green gumboots with crocodile faces on the toes. The social worker also speaks to Sacha in a family room, which is a terrifying half hour for me. I underestimated my daughter’s ability to lie charmingly, though. They emerge, chatting about homework. Perhaps to Kura, Sacha is just a typical post-adolescent, profoundly upset about her little brother. She has no way of knowing that this sallow-skinned girl is no more than a ghost of the real person. Sacha’s back at school but we’re taking no chances. We deliver and collect her ourselves, and while there she’s constantly guarded by Bianka. I can’t imagine ever trusting her again.

  As for Finn, he’s pampered and spoiled for a fortnight, holding court to a constant stream of
visitors. The Colberts come, bearing their sons’ comic books; Destiny arrives with Harvey, who fills his face with Finn’s leftover rice pudding. Ira brings Charlie along after school. Even Tama ventures in and spends an afternoon playing Snakes and Ladders. The lean figure looks supremely out of place, crammed onto a child’s chair and moving a red plastic counter around a board. I’ve rarely seen him indoors before, nor without the hat.

  ‘Social worker paid me a visit,’ he says laconically.

  My stomach drops. ‘Oh.’

  He rolls the dice without looking up. ‘She asked how come I came over that night, so I told her you phoned after the accident. I also let her know what a nice family you are.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Well.’ He moves his counter around the board, and his dark eyes meet mine. ‘It’s all true. But I think you’ve still got a problem to solve. A big problem.’ ‘I know.’

  ‘Two and three makes five,’ exults Finn. ‘High five! You’re goin’ down the long snake, Tama. You’re slidin’ all the way to the bottom. Wheee!

  ’ One evening, two police officers from the child protection team visit Patupaiarehe. They are a man and a woman, hunting in pairs like coyotes. The sight of their uniforms at the door makes me feel faint. I try—and fail—to look blasé. Following a policy of appeasement, Kit and I show them the boys’ bedroom and then we all troop onto the balcony. The woman begins to take measurements and write them in her notebook.

  ‘I couldn’t see much,’ I explain, for the zillionth time. ‘It was dark. I’d left all the inside lights off so I could look at the stars. I was sitting way down there—see? Finn pottered to the rail—here—and then he was up and straight over. It happened in a flash.’

  The man touches the handrail. ‘They have to be built higher than this nowadays. It’s in the building codes. Here.’ He uses a tape measure to show us the new regulation height. ‘This is where they need to be, see, as a minimum.’

  Kit is pacing. He resents having to be polite to people who suspect us of trying to murder our child. ‘Yes, we know.’