The Lazarus Effect (3 page)

Dr Ian Fourie lingered outside the front entrance of the Wellness Institute and sucked in the fresh morning air, enjoying a rare opportunity for introspection before his day began. He stood at his car, looking over the signs of progress. The place was almost finished. Almost … but not quite. Active building sites were a blight, no matter how contained and low-key the forces involved tried to keep them. And builders never finished on schedule, ever. They were meant to have wrapped up in May, when winter kicked in, yet here they were still, staring down the barrel of October in a few weeks. Mercifully, most of it was confined to the back of the grounds, but the thought of people equating a chaotic exterior to shoddy service within made him sour.

He couldn’t think of the WI as up and running until all the finishing touches were complete. Ian liked things
done
. Finality and full stops were reason to relax. Right now, he couldn’t give in to any excitement bubbling under. It was unlucky to celebrate prematurely, or worse, to overstate one’s abilities to complete a task and then fall sadly and pathetically short of it. A lasting stain of my pessimistic mother, he chided himself.

As if to taunt him, the wind picked up. Dust rose and the protective sheeting draped over the concrete lip of the roof billowed above his head. Ian stepped back and coughed, flicking dust off his coat. He looked up at the ledge above the double doors of the main entrance, where the institute’s sign was being erected at last. The temporary wooden slats supporting the lettering groaned and shifted in the wind, sending more debris crumbling to the ground.

‘What the–’ He peered closer and blinked, lost for words. They were courting a lawsuit if a plank got loose and brained a prospective client on his or her way in.

Ian scanned the perimeter tape demarcating the edge of the site, spotted a cluster of builders under a jacaranda at the edge of the car park and headed towards them. ‘Who’s in charge here? You? Okay, come with me, please … yes, you, come with me.’ He drew the puzzled headman back to the entrance and jabbed a finger. ‘Do you see that? Are you and your men responsible for erecting this sign?’

‘Ja, sure.’ The man frowned. ‘But right now’s our tea break.’

‘Naturally. And in the meantime, this establishment poses a danger to all when in fact it’s our duty to heal and protect. Do you not see the irony in that?’

The headman’s expression replied an unequivocal no, he did not. ‘Look man, no worries.
Ons sal dit later regmaak. Hoekom, is jy die hoof van die hospitaal?’
He looked Ian up and down, waiting for a reply, then repeated, slowly, as if speaking to a child, ‘I said, we’ll fix it later. Why, are you the head of the hospital?’
His lip curled as he flicked his eyes over Ian’s cashmere coat and BMW keys. ‘Don’t you speak Afrikaans, man?’

Ian’s keys dug into his fist, heat flooding his face. He wanted to scream at this lout that he practically ran the cardiology unit and was one of the finest specialists on the payroll. ‘Yes, I do, of course,’ he snarled. ‘But right now, that’s not the primary concern.’

The headman took a pointed sip from a steaming mug and flicked his eyes over the sign again. ‘Ja, sorry,
sir
. We’re working as fast as we can. We’ll drop everything and get that fixed for you right away.’ He walked back to his circle of brethren without a backward glance, and Ian watched them make a big show of amusement as the headman overplayed their encounter.

Ian grabbed his belongings from the BMW’s front seat, glowering. He hadn’t meant to grandstand like an ass, but appearances mattered. The WI couldn’t afford to be a reminder of the establishment it used to be. The clientele they wooed wanted excellent care as much as a touch of grandeur. Under no circumstances could anything mar the facility’s debut, not if he had anything to do with it. All the hours of ass-kissing and elbow-greasing had to even out to a substantial payoff, if his efforts hadn’t been a waste.

Ian shut the door of the BMW X5, savouring its meaty sound. That was the sound of a good car as far as he was concerned, that thick, coming-together clunk of expensive doors. The car noises he remembered from his childhood were overly loud and metallic, a death rattle of abused doors and engines on the brink of collapse. Both of his daughters, conscientious as they were, thought the car a waste of money and murder on the
environment, but their distinct lack of complaints at the BMW’s comfort and legroom on long trips didn’t escape his notice. His son was a simpler soul, bless him; grabbed the wheel at every available chance.

Ian strode up the path and through the automatic double doors, hoping to avoid any more encounters of the crass kind. Lingering and mingling was not on his agenda today.

‘Good morning, Dr Fourie.’

He turned towards the deep voice. Behind the security desk a tall, dark-skinned man in uniform rose to his feet, his eyes warm. Patriotic as Ian was, he secretly believed that the best service in town was almost invariably provided by foreigners, his wife excluded. Etienne Matongo, a Congolese getting by in a job he wouldn’t be doing in better times in his own country, always had a cheerful greeting every morning he was on duty. Matongo and the WI went way back. He’d stayed dedicated to the establishment from its infancy to the bloom it now enjoyed, and had earned the deputy of security and surveillance title. Ian spared the few minutes it took to exchange pleasantries about the weather and their families, and then hustled for the lift to the second floor before anyone else cornered him. He ducked past his personal assistant and the assault of morning messages, emails and appointments he knew she had waiting for him and snuck into his office. He hoped, in vain really, that none of the other PAs had seen him. The first moments of peace in the mornings were worth killing for.

It lasted about two minutes before the phone went. Let it ring, he thought as he reclined his chair, pressing thumbs into tired
eyes. It didn’t stop. Sighing, he reached over and answered. It was Tamsin from paediatrics, fraught and apologetic as she informed him they had only two doctors available and the place was a meat market. She knew it wasn’t his responsibility to monitor his wife, but she’d tried the other Dr Fourie several times on her beeper, cell and home phone and still no answer. Could he perhaps …

Ian hung up. He didn’t need to glance at the wall calendar or the smaller, flip-over version on the desk to know the date. No parent ever forgot the month that carried the anniversary of a child’s death. Obviously that was why Carina wasn’t at work yet, why he knew she had no intention of turning up at all. September had truly begun, and every year like clockwork, September rolled in like a cumulonimbus, dank, heavy presence that chewed up every scrap of joy in his heart and home. Every member of his family grew subdued, avoided eye contact and engaging conversation, not to mention the frequent, inexplicable absences from home. Having slept at a nearby bed-and-breakfast last night, he was hardly setting the best example.

Their well-coordinated, sombre dance around the unspoken was familiar – sickeningly comforting, in fact. All the same, he’d expected it to have petered out, if not through the passage of time then at least from how exhausting it had become for all of them. He couldn’t help but conjure up an image of himself seated at his mother’s kitchen table as she fussed over him, his attire and confidence changing over the years but a petulant, hangdog expression tattooed on his face. The years had yawned between them, and neither had been able to submit to the
grief of losing a husband and father. Food and denial became substitutes for communication. Anything could petrify into tradition if people gave it enough respect. Now here he found himself again, decades later. Rinse, repeat. Superstitious he was not, but wondering if a curse hung over his head was beginning to sound plausible.

Ian picked up a framed photograph. The smiling face of his son looked back at him, a face so like his own that the resemblance threatened to splinter his ribcage. In a green shirt splashed with a jaunty print that made him look even younger than his fourteen years, Sean grinned as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Wherever he was now, he likely had no cause for cares. Even with the barest of fuzz on his scalp and lighting that hardly compensated for a sallow complexion, it was hard to tell he was a sick child with precious moments left of his life.

Ian removed the frame and drew another snapshot from behind the first, peeling them apart. The heavy, gilded frame ensured no one ever guessed it was there. The hidden photo showed a young girl in a T-shirt and blue jeans, framed in a doorway with hands in pockets and shoulders raised as she laughed into the camera. Same smile, same-ish nose.

They could be brother and sister.

Absurd, seeing as they were, a bond they would’ve enjoyed more thoroughly had he allowed it in the short time they’d known each other. ‘2 September, 2002’ was written on the back of the boy’s photo, the same day as today, the memory captured mere weeks before he died. ‘17/03/07’ was scrawled
behind the girl’s. Sean, who in a few weeks would have been dead for seven years, and Jacqueline, missing for nearly two.

Two of his children lost in less than a decade, frozen forever at ages fourteen and seventeen. Two grieving mothers hating his fucking guts for the rest of his life: one whose smouldering contempt he had to swallow every day, the other’s leaden silence and ability to freeze him out of every line of communication more effective than any physical blow.

Ian picked up the phone. It felt like a boulder in his palm. The next number he dialled was his wife’s.

The knife carved a slice off the carrot, nearly taking with it the tip of her finger. Carina swore and stuffed the digit in her mouth.

The metallic taste of blood coated her tongue and amplified, filling her mouth and nose. The smell brought back the operating theatres of her internship, of patients drugged and helpless, relying on her skill to see them through. It reminded her of many smells she couldn’t face today: baby powder, full nappies or vomit. She couldn’t handle the combined aroma or sight of babies living and
being
, no matter how much she was needed at the hospital.
I can’t face much of anything right now
. She squeezed her eyelids together and sucked in gulps of air.
Today I see myself through
.

It was pointless. The tears would come no matter which way she played it.

Motherhood was a glum occupation, Carina thought. A dull, thankless stretch of heroism that some women, most, were born to shoulder. Others were self-made, morphing into the role as their bodies plumped and the realisation that they’d intended
to do it at some point sealed their acceptance, even joy. Others were simply resigned to the prospect. She had no idea where, or if, she fitted into either of the latter two groups, but she definitely wasn’t of the first. She’d never fancied the idea of mothering, mostly because she hadn’t given it much thought, preferring to think of things only when they were immediately relevant. She had, though, very much liked the idea of being part of a couple. The better half of a pair. Significantly othered.

Once married, she’d had no clue why the first pregnancy had surprised her. She hadn’t gone out of her way to prevent it, and the thought of a termination had repulsed her as soon as it sprung to mind. Not on any moral or religious grounds, but purely on the principle that she always completed anything she began. Her own mother wouldn’t have been shocked to discover her daughter’s first reaction to the news had not been unbridled delight. Carina made sure she didn’t deliver the news until she wrapped her head around it herself. Not that her mother was someone she had a history of rushing to with tidings of any sort. The woman took judgemental way too far. Since childhood, Carina felt she’d been accused, too harshly in her view, of being too sleepy in her decision-making in some areas and too headstrong and impulsive in others. This from the woman who, after all these years, still doubted that her daughter’s decisions – to study medicine, leave Germany to practice in Africa and marry a man who wasn’t white – were all carefully considered. Which, of course, they had been.

Four pregnancies, though … Carina herself hadn’t seen that coming. After the trauma of Sean’s birth, when they’d
finally laid his perfect, downy head on her chest, she’d told herself she was done. One was enough. But like most modern women who thought themselves above the subservience of love, she hadn’t made any allowance for how powerful would be her need to please her husband. Ian was absolutely besotted with Sean. In that sentiment she’d agreed with her husband wholeheartedly, as they joined forces in showering their eldest with the adulation he deserved.

She’d named him Heinrich, after her own beloved father, but as was usual resigned to having her authority undermined when he went by Sean, his middle, ‘less stuffy’ name. Regardless of what he was called, no child deserved spoiling with love and gifts as the first Fourie. Sean was as good and sweet-tempered in the flesh as he’d been
in utero
, not at all what she’d expected. Carina had looked on in quiet terror at the monstrous blue-veined stomachs, pimpled faces and oedemic legs of expectant mothers, the frightful carryings-on and tantrums of other people’s offspring in public. How had she, a seasoned paediatrician, not noticed these things before? Which blinkers had shielded her eyes from the truth that these little balls of human, her primary clients, were hell-raisers? Without a second thought, she simply doled out the routine lines on childcare that parents craving sleep or time to themselves craved. Until it was her turn, but she’d gotten lucky.

At least with Sean she had. As her belly had swollen distastefully another three times, her attachment to her firstborn had grown disproportionately more intense. None of her children, Sean included, looked much like her. One of her girls, Rosie, even had the audacity to look like a reincarnation of one of Ian’s
overbearing, bearded great-aunts. But Sean had had enough of her in him to satisfy her, she reflected with a smile, something in the general way his features arranged themselves while he battled his emotions and fears. He’d got his strength and resolve from her and, combined with uncommon cheerfulness and maturity, his personality had served him well throughout the course of his illness.