Lullaby (14 page)

They rose as one, her job completed, he not yet knowing if his skills would be called
upon. Doctor Huxley held the door open, so that his body formed a shield between
Maggie and me. Yet, remarkably, she managed to thwart him: a note, scribbled on a
piece of paper no bigger than a thumbnail, too small to make any sound as it floated
to the floor. Had I not been watching her arse as she walked away, I'd have never
seen it fall.

Pen on paper, the timeless tradition. Three words, crammed tiny across the white
space.

Talk to me.

How?

I waited fifteen minutes, not for a better idea, but for a suitable interval that
my first, desperate plan might appear credible. I pushed the call
button. Maggie
and the Doctor arrived together. Huxley appeared slightly harried. Perhaps I had
interrupted his preparations. I was counting on it.

‘I need a toilet,' I told them. Technically, the truth. A toilet, or some other place
where two people might talk undetected, and unrecorded. I hoped she understood. Now,
as I think back, I can't say exactly why I needed to hear from her. It seems strange
to me, from this distance. Part curiosity, I am sure, and part, although it speaks
poorly of me, infatuation.

‘I'll show you.' The doctor stood back and let me pass.

I didn't dare look at Maggie.

I hoped the doctor would be too busy or self-important to stand guard in the corridor.

‘You know the way back?' he asked. And then, as if an afterthought, ‘Are you all
right, Rene?'

‘As could be expected, in the circumstances.'

Doctor Huxley nodded, apparently satisfied. I had no excuse to linger so I entered
the bathroom while he hovered at the door. Perhaps he would wait, perhaps he wouldn't.
That was how it would be.

15

The bathroom held no surprises: a large shower-room-and-toilet in one, with sturdy
support rails screwed into the wall. A plain rectangular mirror was fixed above the
basin. Beside it was a poster instructing users in the thorough washing of hands.
My reflection had red, puffy eyes and blotchy skin. The lighting was honest and cruel.
My hair, usually neat, had been anxiously fingered into shapelessness. I looked
like death.

There was nothing to do but wait. I played unthinkingly with a shower control and
was reprimanded by a burst of cold water, soaking my shoulder and neck.

There was a quiet knock.

Maggie moved into the room. She locked the door behind her.

‘You could lose your job for this,' I said.

‘It's not altogether clear I'll be keeping it after today, anyway,' she replied.

A short pause, although we both knew we couldn't afford it.

‘So, here we are, then.' I spoke too loudly, and whispered an apology; it sounded
puny and comical. I wondered if I should turn on a tap, to mask our conversation,
the way they did in the movies. Like every other thing I could think of, it felt
instantly foolish.

‘You shouldn't do it.' Maggie leaned against the basin. I stood in the middle of
the room, unsupported. An orange shower curtain hung limply by my side.

‘You could have found me incompetent,' I said.

‘They have the recording. It would have been clear to them I'd interfered.'

‘Really? I lied to you, the whole way through. I'm not doing this for them, I'm doing
it to save my brother.'

‘I know you are.'

‘And I can't. That's what they say, isn't it? It won't be him who comes back. So
how can I be
in my right mind, when I'm taking this risk to achieve something that
is impossible?'

‘How can you be insane, when you understand your own motives so clearly?'

It could have been a trick, I suppose. The whole thing might have been set up to
get this very confession from me, one last check. But I had come to believe they
weren't that interested in checks and balances.

‘By the time they reviewed the interview, it would have been too late,' I said.

‘Not for retribution.'

‘So you would let me risk my life for the sake of your own career?'

‘I'm here aren't I?'

I nodded. She was. It was my turn to watch and wait. Her pulled-back hair made her
forehead appear unnaturally large. I imagined her bald, as Emily had been. She would
have looked like an alien.

‘I don't think you understand what it is you're being asked to do,' she said.

‘So tell me.'

‘I don't think I understand either.'

The way she looked at me was different
now, as if my face was a surprise to her,
a new thing to be considered.

‘I don't think they're going to let me stay in here very long,' I said.

Maggie frowned, paused. The caution I had taken to be part of her technique was in
fact native to her.

‘I would like to ask you some more questions, questions I wasn't able to ask you
in the interview. Is that all right?'

I nodded.

‘I'm sorry if I am blunt, but time is— Assume the operation is a success.'

‘Do you think it will be?' I asked.

‘I don't know. Probably, yes. I don't think they have lied to you about that.'

‘What have they lied to me about?'

I gathered the bottom of the curtain in my hand and twisted it. I felt the moisture
pool in my palm: water, sweat, dirt, dead skin cells, bacteria. Mostly, we are bacteria.

‘When the operation is over, they have told you they will take Theo away, is that
right?'

‘At first. For twelve months. So that we are apart.'

‘Why does that matter?' Maggie asked. ‘Did they say?'

‘They think, if we are left together, both with the same memories, both thinking
we're me, that it might, it might be confusing for us. But if we've had twelve months
to accumulate our own histories, become our own people…It's an unknown, that's how
they put it to me. They're controlling an unknown.'

‘Won't you want to see him?' Maggie asked.

‘They'll bring him back eventually.'

‘Yes, and there's the problem.'

She'd tried to lead me here before. I can see that now.

‘I don't understand.'

‘Let me ask another question. What if, during the operation, there was a mix up,
and Theo was left here, with Emily, and you were taken away, to be rehabilitated?
How would you feel about that?'

‘I don't know. Well, not good. I'd prefer to be back here. But, I suppose it depends
upon what they have planned for the rehabilitation, perhaps it would be—'

‘You're not listening to me.' Frustration
squeezed her voice. ‘You're not thinking
about this.'

‘Then tell me.'

But understanding doesn't work like that. You have to put the puzzle together yourself.
There is no other way.

‘You're smart. If you can't see it, it's because you don't want to.' She moved her
weight off the rim of the basin, as if she was about to leave. I felt a surge of
anxiety froth into anger.

‘And that's it, that's all you're giving me?'

She moved toward the door. ‘I need to get back, before they notice I'm gone.'

‘You can't.' I grasped her arm. ‘You think not knowing who I am is going to do my
head in.'

‘No, not head.' She paused for a moment, the way an actor might, in the moment before
they exit. ‘Heads.'

There are some things, when finally you understand them, it is as if you have always
known them, as if a place had been set aside for their arrival. I turned to the basin
and gripped its rim. I stared down the plughole.

‘The elephant in the room,' I muttered.

‘Two rooms,' Maggie said. ‘One elephant.
One elephant in two rooms.'

I felt her hand on the top of my back. I think, if understanding had come some other
way, I might have resisted it. But coming this late, by the time I turned to fight
it, it was already a part of me.

‘You see now, don't you?' Maggie asked.

I looked up at the mirror. Her face was small at my shoulder, watching intently.

‘You said it once, when I was with him. You said I need to stop thinking of it being
about him and me.'

‘I shouldn't have,' she said. ‘It was a risk.'

‘If it works, and we both wake up—' my voice was small, as if spoken by somebody
else, coming to us from across a great distance ‘—then I wake up twice. I wake up
as two different people.'

So obvious, so inevitable. It's not that I hadn't known, it was an inescapable part
of the deal. What I hadn't done, though, was experience the great coming apart of
the self that would surely follow.
You will wake up twice.
I tried to imagine it,
but it was like trying to imagine a round square, or a colour bigger than sadness.

‘What will that be like, do you think?' I asked her.

‘I don't know.'

I could see the deliberate patience on Maggie's face, waiting for me to round the
final bend. I turned to her. The mirror had been deceptive, we were almost touching.
The space between us felt compressed, resistant. ‘Will I know what he is thinking?'

As I asked the question, I knew how inadequate it was.

‘Yes and no.'

‘I said
he
. I said will I know what
he
is thinking.'

‘Yes, you did.'

‘It's because, I don't know how else to think of it, except to think of it in a way
that is wrong.' I would get there, soon, arrive at that place where the emptiness
expanding within me would have a name. First though, the terror. I saw Maggie's relief.
She had done what she needed to. I was informed.

‘That's what you've been saying, isn't it? Not head, but heads. After the operation,
I will wake up in my own body, and I will wake up in Theo's, and…which one will I
be? Who will I be?'

It was like a tangle of string with only one end:
apparently simple, yet insoluble.
‘I'm frightened.'

‘Yes, you are.'

‘You think I should be, don't you?'

‘Yes, yes I do.'

‘Tell me honestly, what will this do to me?'

She looked away, spoke to the floor. ‘I can only guess. It's not as if there are…'

‘Guess.'

‘You'll lose your mind.'

‘Minds.'

‘Yes. You'll lose your minds.'

I could feel the warmth of her words in my face. My back was to the basin now. It
was up to her to step away.

‘Explain that.'

So close I could see the flaws in her perfect skin, could finally imagine her and
I walking the same street without one of us looking out of place.

‘My job is to help people stay intact, to keep them whole. That's what I trained
for. The first thing you learn about the mind is how delicate it is, how easily it
can come apart. When we are well, the world feels solid, there are a thousand different
certainties we can call upon to conjure up the self: that our memories are reliable,
that
our senses do not lie to us, that the world means us no harm, that we are loved,
and capable of loving, that other minds share our world, that our words have meaning
to them, that we can touch each other. That we exist. But the whole thing is a trick
of balance and perspective, and knowing when to look away. The most surprising thing
can trigger a crisis. In the old days we would have called it a crisis of faith,
now we call it a crisis of being. Lose just one of those certainties, and you will
quickly discover how many others it was holding in place.

‘I don't know if this will destroy you, Rene. Perhaps you are particularly robust
in your construction. But that, I have found, is highly unpredictable. If I had to
guess, I would guess you will come apart.'

‘We will come apart.'

‘There's no pronoun for what you will be. That in itself should serve as a warning.'

‘What certainties? What will I lose?'

A frown crinkled her nose and forehead. ‘I don't know I can name it, exactly. That's
the problem.'

‘But I should fear it anyway?'

She shook her head. ‘No, I should try to explain.'

In some other place, time ticked on, but in the bathroom, it waited patiently. Maggie's
eyes narrowed. The lines around them were delicate, barely drawn.

‘Are you afraid of dying?' she asked.

‘You said so yourself, the chance of anything going wrong—'

‘Not from the operation. I mean eventually. One day, you will be dead. The world
will continue without you. Does that frighten you?'

‘I try not to think about it,' I said.

‘And days like today, when you have no choice?'

‘It's—' I looked for the right word, knowing full well no such word existed. ‘I don't
like it.'

She nodded, as if that was admission enough.

‘When I was a child,' she said, ‘I developed a fear of falling asleep. I tried to
explain it to my mother, but she didn't understand. She thought I was just afraid
I would never wake up, that I would die in my sleep. She told me how unlikely that
was. But she'd missed the point.'

‘What point?' Although I already knew.
Doesn't everybody?

‘I wasn't afraid sleep would lead to my death. I was afraid sleep
was
death. That
every night, I died.'

‘But we wake from sleep,' I said.

‘Somebody wakes,' she answered.

‘I wake.'

‘How do you know it's you?'

I shrugged, reluctant to take the only move she had left me.

‘It's obvious.'

Maggie's voice dropped. Neither of us mentioned the way I was shaking.

‘If, during this procedure, you die, but your memories are saved, and transferred
to your brother's body, so when he wakes it is just obvious to him that he is you,
does that mean you haven't really died?'