Lullaby (2 page)

‘Treatment for what?'

‘That's not the sort of thing you ask your mother.'

‘But she had the treatment?' Maggie asked.

‘No, she took a risk. That's how my story begins, eighteen years ago, my mother took
a risk with our lives.'

‘That's a bit a dramatic, isn't it?'

Maggie's eyebrows arched. They were carefully shaped, but thick and strong. Another
day, I might have thought about that long enough to
like it. I looked out the window
to the garden, and thought roses were a strange choice for a hospital. Fine in summer,
but what about the rest of the year?

‘I want to see him again.' My words caught me by surprise.

If you cry, she'll think you're breaking up. She'll tell them you're not fit.

If you don't cry
,
she'll think there's something wrong with you.

That's the way I remember it starting, a game I couldn't win—had to win. I had to
make her believe I hadn't gone out of my mind, and I couldn't let her know why it
mattered. Because only an incompetent mind would want what I wanted. That was the
first problem. Second problem, I was exhausted: that part of me not numbed by shock
was beginning to fracture. Even forming simple sentences took effort. But I was
a long-distance runner. I knew how to guts it out, make it to the finish line.

‘You can see him any time you like,' Maggie said. ‘But we're on a deadline. You understand
that?'

‘He'll deteriorate,' I said.

She gave an approving smile, to show she'd noted the change in my language.

‘Yes, he will.'

I thought then, I remember this so clearly, I thought,
Theo would have liked you.

‘So, do you want to go back to him?'

‘No, we should keep talking.'

‘Thank you.'

Another smile. I was using them to keep score.

‘What was it like for your mother, having twins?'

‘I don't know.'

‘That's not entirely true, is it?' Maggie said.

‘I don't remember what it was like early on. Nobody does.'

‘But she wrote it down for you. She kept a diary.'

There was a time, we were maybe nine or ten, when Theo and I read from it every night.
And another time, when neither of us could bear to look at it.

‘How do you know that?' I asked.

Maggie swivelled back to her desk. The side of her thigh was split by the line of
the quadriceps.
I wondered what sport she played, for her legs to look that way.
Racketball, I guessed: away from the sunlight, nowhere for her opponent to run. She
peeled off a sheet and handed it to me.

‘You've been in my files.'

‘Of course.'

‘That's an invasion of—'

‘The law allows it.'

I knew, if I started to read, I'd end up crying.

October 21

Well, you're eight months old now, and people keep telling me that very soon you'll
be sleeping through the night. I'm trying hard not to listen to them, because I'm
pretty sure you're not listening to them either. I lie to those people, so they don't
feel obliged to give me advice. I tell them that most nights you do six or seven
hours. In truth, some nights, one of you does six or seven hours. Last night it was
your brother's turn. You woke five times. Twice to be fed, the other times because
you can, I suppose, or because your stomach hurt, or your brain was fizzing or something—who
knows what it's like in there. I saw a woman yesterday, at the pool, whose little
boy is only ten
months old, and already walking. You're still commando crawling,
like you're sure we've strung barbed wire across the room just above the level where
your bum sticks up. If you could see yourself, you'd know your head is higher than
your bottom, even with the nappies. It's a big head. That might explain the way you
move, holding it up must be difficult. Today you and your brother had your very first
food fight. He won, by vomiting his carrot on your shoulder. Some day, when you're
old enough to read this, you'll probably think he cheated. So do I.

Tears plopped onto the text; one, two, three. I didn't sniff, or look up.

‘It sounds like she enjoyed being a mother.'

‘How many of them have you read?'

‘It's only an hour since I was notified. I've skimmed a few things, that's all.'

‘She didn't enjoy it,' I said.

‘Did she tell you that?'

‘No. We didn't talk about it. I think, by the time I was old enough to understand,
the pain had mostly passed.'

‘What pain?' Maggie asked.

I looked up and felt the sting of my bloodshot eyes. ‘I don't know. It just seems
like she's trying too hard to make it sound good. That she's writing it the way she
wishes it was. That's just how it feels to me. But I'm not a psychologist.'

‘What about your father?'

Maggie took the sheet back. There was a moment when the ends of our thumbs brushed
against one another. Funny, the things you remember. A thousand little anchors,
holding you in place.

‘He wrote lists, maybe you read them.'

‘No.'

‘He liked lists. Actually, it was a spreadsheet. The number of times he got up in
the night for us, how long we fed for, whether we burped or pooed, how many minutes
it took to get us back to sleep.'

‘Why do you think he did that?'

‘I dunno,' I said.

Maggie waited. She was very good at waiting.

‘I think he liked the idea of being the very best father he could be, that a part
of him wanted to believe he worked harder than other fathers. I think he probably
liked having twins, because the game's got more points in it that way.'

‘You make it sound like pride,' Maggie said.

‘It was pride.'

‘Perhaps it was just generosity.'

‘I think it was both.'

I didn't want to her to understand him. I've always felt the need to keep him for
myself, and for Theo.

‘Tell me how your parents died.'

‘I don't see how that's—'

‘It's an important part of your story.'

‘I thought this was about my brother.'

Maggie shook her head. ‘It's about you. You're his closest living relative. We can't
proceed without informed consent.'

‘If this was about informed consent,' I said, ‘you'd be informing me. But you're
not, you're asking me questions.'

‘Okay, it's about more than consent.'

‘You lied.'

‘Sure, if you like.' It didn't seem to worry her. ‘It's not about informed consent,
it's about capacity for informed consent. That's my job, to see if you are capable
of knowing what you want.'

‘Is anybody?' I asked.

‘There's a scale.'

‘You have to make sure the trauma hasn't affected me.'

‘Your twin brother is dying,' she answered. ‘If the trauma hadn't affected you, there
would be something seriously wrong.'

‘You need to be sure my decision can't be challenged in a court.' I knew a little
bit.

‘That's part of it.'

‘How am I doing?'

‘Until you asked that question, very well.'

This time her smile was different. Like she'd just realised how nervous I was, how
much I needed her to like me.

‘So how did they die?'

‘Picnic, lightning.' Her fault, for encouraging me.

‘You know, I'm sure I've read that book.'

‘I only saw the movie. It was lightning though. We don't know the circumstances.
Only that Dad was driving, and for some reason he stopped and got out, even though
it was pouring with rain. He was in the middle of the road when they found them,
and she was half in, half out. Like she'd got out to drag him back in, or to see
what he was doing, or…He had a torch. People had theories. I
don't think they were
arguing. Neither does Theo. They didn't argue much. With everybody else, all the
time, but not with each other.'

‘What did they argue with other people about?'

‘How do these questions help?' I asked. ‘What do they have to do with judging whether
I'm in my right mind?'

‘If I have to explain every question—'

‘Just this one.'

Maggie considered it, or considered me. I've never been that good at holding eye
contact, especially when there's silence. Three beats, and I have to talk or look
away. Apart from with Theo. Theo was like looking into a mirror.

‘We ask about your past because it gives us a sense of how you see yourself. And
the more we talk, the less guarded we become. In your case, your parents died suddenly.
So this question can give me an idea of how you cope with loss. Essentially, I'm
building a picture of you, and comparing it to reference pictures: of people who
are suffering but competent, and of others who've lost their frame of reference.
It's imprecise, but it's what we have. Is that enough information for you?'

I nodded.

Imagine playing chess, and your opponent starts explaining all their moves to you.
How insignificant would your skills have to appear to them, before they would be
prepared to do that?

‘You're recording this?'

‘I'm sorry, I thought you'd been told.'

‘Yeah, I had.'

‘For clinical review, should my findings be challenged. In those circumstances the
only person to access this would be another psychologist.'

I nodded.

She left a gap for another question.

I let it close over.

‘So, your parents, what did they like to argue about, with other people?'

‘Education, politics, how to raise children. The environment.'

‘And you miss them?'

‘Of course I miss them.'

And, even though it was exactly what she wanted me to do, I slipped into a story.
I needed my parents close.

‘I remember one morning, a month before they died, we had breakfast together. That
was unusual. Mostly it was four people running late, each sure the other three were
deliberately making them later. But this day there was a strange coincidence, like
when a room full of conversation suddenly falls silent, and we all sat down together
at the table, by a window, looking out over the water. I watched people pushing into
the wind, hurrying to get to the station, too busy to notice how beautiful the ocean
is when it's wild. The radio was on. We were the only people I knew that listened
to radio. There was a panel discussion about the upcoming election. Theo asked Dad
what something meant, I don't remember what, something to do with economics. And
Dad liked to lecture. In his head, I think he saw it as a discussion. We didn't mind.
He knew a lot of stuff, and it made us feel important, that he would want to explain
it to us. He got up, turned off the radio, called up his work and told them he wouldn't
be coming in that day, because he had an infected toe. We told him that was worst
excuse we'd ever heard, and he replied that it was so bad they'd assume it was true.
He liked doing stuff like that, fake grand gestures. As if he saw
himself as impulsive
and reckless, when really he worked each day as a food technologist, rode in on the
commuter line, paid his bills on time, slept with a hot-water bottle between his
feet seven months of the year, and waited for lightning.

‘Mum did the school call, told them something important had come up in the family.
Then we got five hours on the foundations of political economy. By the end, all we
wanted to do was get up and run around a field. But we didn't, because there was
no way to do that without it making him sad. He wouldn't say anything. He'd try to
hide it from us, the way a father should, but we always knew. One Christmas, Theo
and me got these amazing helicopter things, but Mum hadn't realised you had to buy
batteries separately. That's how my father looked when we failed to meet his hopes
for us, like they'd left out the batteries. Sorry, I don't know why I told you that.'

‘He sounds like a great father,' Maggie said.

‘No he doesn't, but it's nice of you to say it.'

There was thick snot mixing with my tears. And talking about my parents was the easy
part. I'd had a while to get used to it.

‘And when they died, they were having a
weekend away, is that right?'

‘They often had weekends away.'

‘Away from what?'

‘Us. It started when we were little, when our grandparents were still alive. Back
then, I think they did them to survive. And later they became like holidays.'

‘You don't feel guilty?'

‘Why would I?'

She was trying things out, seeing which wires were still connected.