After the Fall (21 page)

‘
She?
’ echoed Kit.

‘Bianka. She has the sweetest smile.’

I had to agree. ‘A stunner, in a retro way.’

‘Spitting image of Greta Garbo,’ said Kit.

‘Did I tell you she’s a lesbian?’

I gaped. ‘
Bianka?

’ ‘Openly gay. But nobody gives her any shit, because she is so totally okay with it herself. She’s “take me or leave me, this is who I am”.’

‘Well. Um.’ I forced my features into a look of blasé unconcern. ‘So are you . . .?’

‘If I was bi, I’d definitely fall for Bianka. I’m not, sadly.’ Sacha hugged herself. ‘They’re amazing people. Anita, the mother . . . you met her, Mum. Just incredible. The doctors don’t think they can beat the cancer, but she’s having all this awful experimental treatment just to buy a little more time. She wants to see her children become adults, says that’s all she asks. The dad’s gone to pieces. Jani found him crying last night.’

‘Poor bloke . . . Ginger crunch?’

‘No thanks. I’m on a diet.’ Sacha stood by the sink, pouting like a super-model at her reflection in the window.

Kit helped himself. He loved Pamela’s baking. ‘Daft girl. You’re perfect as you are.’

‘Tabby makes me look like the Michelin Man.’

‘Bet she’s got no bust. I can’t be doing with these flat-chested women.’

‘Er, no,’ Sacha retorted dryly, looking me up and down. ‘So I gathered. You like to have something you can get hold of, don’t you, Kit?’

I squealed in outrage, and she giggled. ‘Well,’ she announced, stretching her arms above her head, ‘lovely night. I’m going to walk down to the road gate and back.’

‘
Now?
’ I protested.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake. There’s a full moon, bright as day. Look, there are even shadows.’

‘Moon shadows,’ said Kit.

‘Take cover!’ Sacha held her hands over her ears. ‘Omigod, he’s about to burst into song. Has anyone taken the poor dog out today? No, I thought not. C’mon, Muffin!’

With a wheezy woof of excitement, Muffin hauled herself out of the basket and padded adoringly after her mistress. The air was so clear that I could hear Sacha talking to her long after they’d disappeared over the brow of the hill.

I so wanted my family to be happy. It was all that mattered. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t notice the glittering snake as it uncoiled itself in our garden.

Sixteen

It isn’t peaceful in an intensive care unit. It’s the front line: commotion, alarms, crises. People are dying. People die.

Only last night, Finn was chasing our chickens and catapulting peas off his fork. Now his face has the mottled pallor of sour cream. His eyes are grotesquely puffed up, the whole area a deep, unnatural blue. They’ve put him on a ripple bed, a special mattress to ward off bedsores. He would like that idea. I hold his hand and murmur to him until sounds blur and the light becomes one vibrating sheet of grey. His nurse is watching my every move. Slowly, it dawns on me that the man’s on tenterhooks. He thinks I might try to hurt my son.

All morning, Finn is visited by a stream of medics. I’m only now realising what a massive mobilisation took place when our helicopter landed in the night. Neil Sutherland drops by, still looking tired. The paediatric giraffe, too—his bedside manner hasn’t improved much. There’s an anaesthetist, who tries to explain how the coma works. They all do their best to keep me informed, but none of them can promise that my boy will be himself again.

At two o’clock, the Auckland neurologist appears.

‘I’m an OT,’ I tell her, trying not to sound hysterical. ‘I’m all too familiar with traumatic brain injury. Please be honest. Will Finn be permanently affected?’

She is Chinese, about forty, slightly severe. She thinks carefully before she replies. ‘The surgery went well, but I can’t give you a firm prognosis at this early stage.’

‘You must have an opinion?’

‘Well, there are several positive factors. He’s very young, and he had early intervention. The intracranial pressure is already considerably lower. I don’t think we’ll need to maintain this coma for very long, which is a real plus.’

‘But can you give me an idea of the extent . . . What about blindness— deafness? What about his speech? His personality? His . . . well, you know, his intellect?’

She looks at Finn’s little body. Her face is a blank mask. ‘Recovery is not the same for any two people. We’ll be in a better position to discuss prognosis once he’s conscious. I’m sorry.’

I thank her. Once she’s gone I try Kit’s phone yet again. Voicemail. Needing Tama’s unquestioning calm, I call home.

‘All good on the western front,’ he says. ‘Don’t you worry about anything here. Ira’s coming in later. How is the little guy?’

‘Stable.’ I feel stronger for hearing his voice. ‘Thank you, Tama. I don’t know how I would have managed.’

‘Cut that out.’

‘How are Charlie and Sacha?’

He hesitates. ‘Well, as you’d expect, pretty upset . . . Sacha just about fainted when I told her what’s happened, poor kid. In a hell of a state. She’s fast asleep right now, though. Flat out with this flu. Her friend’s here.’

‘Friend?’ I was bemused. ‘What friend?’

‘Er . . . young lass called Bianka. She’s upstairs in Sacha’s bedroom. Been with her all day.’ I’m digesting this information when he speaks again. ‘Charlie came for a ride on Ruru this morning. Sat up in front of me like a little prince. We moved some stock, had a great time . . . didn’t we, fella?’

I hear Charlie’s voice piping in the background.

‘He wants to speak to you,’ says Tama. ‘All right?’

‘Um . . .’ I clear my throat. ‘Yep. Put him on.’

Muffled conversation, then the sound of small hands dropping the receiver. I wait with closed eyes, dreading the gentle optimism of Charlie’s world because I know it may soon be destroyed.

‘Mummy?’

I nearly let him down. Sorrow surges into my throat. I swallow it back but it sticks somewhere in my chest. ‘Hello, Charlie! Have you . . .’ My voice splinters. I take a long breath. ‘Have you had a nice time with Tama?’

‘He took me riding. We saw baby calves . . . Where’s Finn?’

I look at the ruined figure on the bed. ‘He’s here, beside me.’

‘Did he fall off the balcony?’

‘He did, Charlie.’

A sniff. ‘Silly old Finny. Is he coming home today?’

‘Not today. But he will be all right, you’ll see. He’ll be all right. The doctors and nurses are looking after him.’

‘Can I talk to him on the telephone?’

Tears force their way past my defences. They hurt. They bruise. ‘No, he’s asleep. But I’ll give him your love.’

‘He hasn’t got his Game Boy.’

‘True, but he does have Buccaneer Bob. And when he’s a bit better, you can bring him his Game Boy.’

‘Tama and me fed the lamb. Tell Finn.’

‘I’ll tell him.’

He must have dropped the phone again. I hear scrabbling, and Tama’s voice. Then Charlie’s. ‘Where’s Dad?’

Good question.
‘He’ll be home soon.’

‘He
is
home. He was by my bed in the night.’

I’m silenced for a moment, appalled. I can hear Mum laughing. Then I whisper, ‘No, sweetie. Dad’s not back from Ireland yet.’

Charlie shouts in distress, ‘He was
here
, though. I saw him.’

‘You didn’t.’

‘I did! He kissed me. He picked Blue Blanket up from the floor and tucked it in with me.’

‘You were dreaming. We all miss Dad.’

Heavy, stubborn breathing. ‘Wasn’t dreaming.’

‘He’ll be home before you know it.’

‘
Wasn’t dreaming!
He promised to take us to Jane’s. He wanted to see the baby rabbits.’

‘And he will. Everything’s going to be all right.’

‘Mm.’ There is a long pause, with babyish snuffling. I see the thumb going in, the wide and wondering eyes. ‘Where do people go, when they die?’

‘Charlie, nobody’s going to die.’

‘If Finn dies, he will be lonely. He’ll want to come home.’

What do you do when someone you love has made the world explode?

Seventeen

Charlie and Finn turned five on the first of December. In line with New Zealand tradition, we plotted to pack them off to primary school on that very day—midweek—thus committing the poor little buggers to thirteen years on a wheel of suffering. Some birthday present.

We’d visited the school already. It had taken the twins about two seconds to work out that Torutaniwha Primary was paradise, even if they couldn’t pronounce its name. Mr Grant, the bearded principal, gave them lollipops, and the new entrants’ teacher fussed over them like a broody hen. Mrs Martin was young, enthusiastic and heavily pregnant.

On their last night as preschoolers, we went for tea in Jane’s café. There, I got chatting to a school mother, one of those chinless types who talk in little-girl voices. She had disturbing news. Michelle Martin had developed complications and was out of action for the rest of the pregnancy. Her replacement had hurriedly been shoehorned into the job.

‘Mr Taulafo,’ said the mother.

‘Oh dear. What’s he like?’ I was in a froth of anxiety.

‘The kids love him. He’s brilliant with them.’ She leaned forward with her hand covering her mouth. ‘I want to
eat
him,’ she whispered, and giggled.

Charlie, who’d been listening with a quivering lower lip, reached for his blanket. ‘I like Mrs Martin.’

Brings out the worst in you, sending your children to school. One day you’re wishing they’d grow up and sod off and leave you in peace; the next you’re sniffling pathetically as you pack their spare underpants. Tiny Y-fronts, in case of accidents.

‘It’s at Hinemoana’s hill. Hee-nay-mo-ah-na,’ I coached them neurotically, as they bolted their breakfast on the first school day of their lives. They’d been up since six, opened all their presents and eaten the chocolate buttons off their birthday cake.

‘Ringy Moaner,’ said Charlie, his fair curls stuck out at zany angles.

‘Thingy Mamma,’ added Finn, ramming a Sugar Puff up his nose. He giggled, inhaled sharply and got a piece of processed wheat stuck two inches up his nasal passage. I had to fish it out with tweezers.

Now that school was finally upon them, they seemed not the slightest bit awed by the solemnity of the occasion; not even Charlie. They ducked my hairbrush as though it was a cat-o’-nine-tails and strutted importantly out of the house in their blue school shirts and grey shorts. While Kit and I searched for shoes they hopped merrily into their booster seats, backpacks bulging with Superman lunchboxes.

‘So this is it,’ said Kit, strolling out to the car with me. ‘Our babies are schoolboys, Martha.’

‘Where did the last five years go?’ I asked sadly.

‘Passed in a flash.’ He looked into the car, where the boys were serenading themselves with a tuneless chorus of ‘Happy Birthday to Us’. ‘But they’ve not been wasted, that’s for sure.’

As I parked behind the dunes, the entire school—about thirty children— seemed to be playing rugby. Not one of them wore shoes. A couple of vagabonds were hoisting the New Zealand flag up a pole. The next time I looked, my sons were gone. They’d joined a blue-shirted mob of desperate characters, all trying to tackle one spindly little fellow who was making a run for it. He went down hard under the swarm, and mine were somewhere deep in the dog pile. Then the ball came shooting out from beneath a mound of wriggling bodies, and the game was off again.

Feeling abandoned, I made my way to the new entrants’ classroom, a technicolour haven with miniature chairs and tables. I hoped to meet the new teacher. A powerful male form dwarfed the furniture, balancing on a chair as he hung paintings along a string.

I stared. ‘Ira?’

He looked round, his face lighting up. ‘G’day, Martha!’ His hair was tied back and he was wearing a shirt with rolled-up sleeves that more or less covered the artwork on his biceps.

‘Nice to see you,’ I said. ‘What brings you here? I was looking for Mr Taulafo.’

‘Yup.’ He jumped down from the chair. ‘That’s me.’

It took a good five seconds for this information to sink in. ‘You . . .? But you never said!’

He shrugged. ‘Conversation never got around to it.’

Thinking back, I realised I’d never tried to find out much about Ira. I had been happy to like him as the brawny removal man who rode like a cowboy, was a magnet to small boys and told magical, mystical stories. I felt ashamed.

‘You might have mentioned it to the twins, though,’ I scolded. ‘They would have been
so
excited.’

‘Didn’t know myself. I’ve been doing casual work like the house moving and relief teaching around the district while I looked for something permanent. Only had the interview for this job two weeks ago. I was waiting to hear if I’d got it. Then last week Michelle Martin went to the doctor for a pre-natal and he took one look at her blood pressure and slapped her on bed rest. So I got a call: “You’ve got the job, bro, can you start tomorrow?” I’ve been chasing my tail ever since, no lesson plans organised or anything. And with all the chaos it was only this morning I got told I had two new entrants coming—I was pretty happy when I found out who they were!’