The gifted son, p.32
The Gifted Son, page 32
Mark took a seat opposite Jez. ‘I was a coward. I should pay for what I did. I see that now.’
‘No, man, it’s over. Nobody else is going down because of what you did. You being punished won’t make a difference to Jamie. It’s time to move on.’
‘The thing is, when I was goading him into doing muck-up day with us, I did want him to get in trouble,’ Mark said. ‘I did want to leave a mark on the school, and I wanted Jamie to be part of it. I kinda hoped he’d get caught. I didn’t want to hurt him but I hoped he’d learn a lesson. Just once I wanted someone to face some consequences. Any consequences. When Ryan attacked us, I was so mad. He was interfering with my plan. I was telling the truth when I said I didn’t mean to hit Jamie. It wasn’t planned. But I had wanted to get back at him.’
Jez didn’t like this new twist. ‘Giesen—’
‘I’ve been thinking about it every day since it happened,’ Mark cut him off. ‘I was so scared I’d stuffed up, just like my dad. Just like all those kids at school said. I was a Rabid-Scabid son of a con. At night I’d lie awake, thinking, I’ve gotta own up. I tried, too. I called Sergeant Hawke. Tried to feel out how it might go. He said if Jamie doesn’t pull through it could be a manslaughter charge.’
‘They said that to me too.’
‘That scared me. Manslaughter. For one stupid mistake. You assault someone in a mad moment of rage, that’s one thing. You can come back from that, but killing someone? You kill someone your life’s over.’ Mark sniffed. ‘So fucking selfish,’ he said, refilling both their glasses. ‘I know. Don’t hit people, right? But I got hit. A lot. Who paid then?’ He shook his head. ‘I’m not trying to justify it.
‘After you left this morning, I walked around Hyde Park and I kept thinking about when he was first hurt. In hospital, lying there, fragile as a leaf, and all the bad feelings I’d had just vanished. I think part of the reason I didn’t want to accept responsibility for what happened was deep down I felt wronged. But I look at him, and I know I’m the reason he’s like that, and I have to face the consequences. So, I called the cops too.’
‘What do you mean?’ Jez was confused. ‘Today?’
‘After Kate said she had the footage I realised the answer was simple. I couldn’t let you get in trouble for protecting me. So, I called the police and told them it was me. They asked me to come down to the station. I signed a full confession. Well, a statement saying I threw the punch. I told them Kate’s CCTV tape would corroborate what I was saying, and they charged me on summons. One count of assault. That police officer, Sergeant Hawke, he wasn’t there, which made things easier. It was all very civil in the end.’ He sighed. ‘To be honest, it was a relief.’
‘So, it’s not over?’
‘It is over. I’m not going to fight it. I need to make up for what I did.’
‘But … You’re really okay with this?’
‘I should have done it straight away. I feel better than I have in months. I did a stupid thing and I’ve finally owned up to it. I just hope Jamie can forgive me one day.’ Mark looked at Jez. ‘I hope you can forgive me.’
The relief nearly knocked Jez off his feet. All the deception, all the lies, had been corrected. He did a mental tally of everything that had transpired. Jez would have to come clean with Jamie. That would be hard. He didn’t look forward to it, but it would also feel good to purge himself. Like Mark, there was a part of him that knew it would be cathartic, and he looked forward to atoning and moving past everything. He realised, with a lightness he hadn’t felt in months, that they were square. Whatever lay ahead for Mark, he was at peace with it.
‘I feel like such an idiot for not just telling the truth in the first place,’ Mark said. ‘But it all happened so quickly. It was scary, and I think once I started to lie, I didn’t know how to stop.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Jez said.
‘How’d Jamie look today when you went to see him? Is he doing okay?’
‘I don’t know. They’re monitoring him. But he looked pretty flat.’
‘I hope he’s okay,’ Mark said.
‘He will be. I’m sure of it. When this is all over we’ll do something really nice for him. A big “we’re sorry” surprise. Let him know it was all a mistake that got out of hand.’ Jez felt tears spring into his eyes. He cleared his throat and said, ‘Hey, I’m starving. I’ve barely eaten in days. Let’s get some food.’
‘Good idea, I’m famished.’
Jez covered his face with his hands, grateful and tired, and overwhelmed. He couldn’t believe it was over.
While Mark scrolled Uber eats for his favourite pizza place Jez’s phone rang. The name that came up on the screen was ‘Hoges Mum’.
‘Why’s she calling?’ he asked out loud, then pressed answer. ‘Hello?’
‘Jez,’ her voice was cold. ‘I think you should come to the hospital.’
‘O-kay,’ the feeling of relief drained away.
‘Jamie’s not doing so well. Please hurry,’ Lillian said. ‘You need to hurry.’
Chapter 42
Jamie
After he’d asked Sergeant Hawke to drop the charges, Jamie was overcome with light-headedness. He’d been trying to put on a brave face for his family but talking to Jez and then the cop had taken all of the fight out of him, and he felt weak and breathless. He pressed the buzzer for a nurse. A young woman with big hoop earrings and fuchsia-coloured lipstick came in and took his temperature. He was no longer in the acute spinal injury ward, and he was disappointed Mary wasn’t on hand, and that Louis wasn’t around to keep him entertained. Where was Louis? Jamie’s mind was foggy.
The nurse murmured as she read his temperature. ‘I’m just going to ask the doctor to come in and have a little look at you. No need to worry,’ she told him, but her tone said the opposite.
Jamie was glad a doctor was coming. He felt like he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. Voices echoed around the room. He closed his eyes and the field flashed in his mind—this time only a memory. The sky rippled with colour. The ocean shimmered, boundless and black, except for one silver spot that reflected the orb hanging in the sky above. He had the sensation of sinking. Jamie felt as if his bed was tilting backwards. The temperature of the room dropped to a chill. Had the field been real? Was he going there now?
He recalled the warmth of his grandfather’s voice, and the softness of his flannel shirt. The intense feeling of safety he’d felt as his grandfather had pulled him into a bearhug had left an imprint on his soul. Since then, he often sensed the ghost of his grandfather around him, with Great-Uncle Francis hovering nearby too. Theirs was a genial, reassuring presence. He felt them now.
As he lay in the hospital bed, the world reached him through the filtered gauze of medication. In the distant dark he could hear someone talking about an infection. Complications. There was a pinpoint sting in his arm as blood was drawn.
Visitors funnelled past his bed. His parents hovered on the edge of his field of vision. Their presence was a comfort. He could smell Tessa’s lip gloss and shampoo, feel the soft inside of her palm on his arm. He recalled hearing Louis’s voice. He slept.
Jez and Mark came to visit. They had the queasy expressions of two people who had just been conscripted and Jamie concluded that his hospitalisation was the source of their misery. They looked at each other, and then the floor. Mark rubbed a tear from his eye.
‘We’ve got to tell you something,’ Jez said.
‘Uh-huh.’ It was as if Jamie was watching the world through thick glass. ‘What is it?’
‘It was me,’ Mark blurted.
‘What?’ Jamie croaked.
‘I’m the one who threw the punch. I’m the reason you’re here.’
‘Threw the punch?’ Jamie repeated. The words didn’t make sense.
‘We’re so sorry.’ Jez was crying.
‘I hit you. Not Ryan. It was me. Near the dry-cleaners. And then Ryan got arrested and—’
‘Hoges, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. We’ll make it up to you,’ Jez said. ‘You’re going to beat this. I know it.’
Suddenly the room sharpened. ‘Why are you telling me this?’ Jamie felt hot again. Jez and Mark looked at each other.
‘It all happened so quickly,’ Jez began. As he talked and tried to explain the sequence of events, Jamie grew agitated. Now the room was burning.
He was plunged back into blackness. The sensation he was falling rushed over him and he had a strong sense of déjà vu. He realised he was in the field. The wind was up and it was darker than usual. Although the grass was manicured, as if in preparation for a rugby match, everything else about the field was brutal. The ocean was choppy, loud and menacing. The distant trees appeared black as crows. Without the school buildings, the huddled black clumps of foliage were the only things interrupting the sweep of landscape. They reminded Jamie of an English lesson about collective nouns and how the term for crows had stuck in his head. A murder.
Time skipped and he found himself playing chess with his grandfather, while Great-Uncle Francis watched on. The wind was howling. He rubbed his arms and contemplated his pieces, lined up in two neat rows. He lightly touched his pawn. Its white marble head was polished smooth.
‘I did what you told me,’ he said to them. He moved his piece forward two squares. The stakes felt high. The wind was growing stronger, blowing over the chess pieces, and he could no longer see his grandfather’s face. Just a dark figure. ‘I’ve been nothing but good,’ he said.
Jamie’s eyes cracked opened to the sound of his mother and father having a conversation with the nurse. Both of them had their arms crossed, and he could feel distress emanating off them as they tried to make sense of what they were hearing.
‘But how could he have contracted pneumonia?’ Lillian asked.
‘He’ll be okay, though, won’t he? He’s strong and he’s young,’ John was saying.
‘There’s greater risk because of his injury.’
‘But he was medically stable. He’s been out working, volunteering to help others. He’s been exercising too. Look at the size of him, he’s been lifting weights.’
‘There seems to be another infection. Something unexpected in his blood. We’re bringing in a haematologist.’
‘A haematologist? What for?’ His father’s voice was strained.
Fatigue cloaked Jamie. In his haze he wondered if the haywire readings on the monitors were simply the biochemistry of the miracle that he had set in motion. He had forgiven, after all, even though he hadn’t known the truth. That had to count for something. As soon as Jez had left the other day, Jamie had called the mobile number he had for Sergeant Hawke and asked him to call off the dogs. The officer had come into the hospital to talk it over. Jamie had assured him he knew what he was doing. Afterwards, Jamie had felt light, and like he’d wrestled back a little control over his destiny.
He wondered what a miracle might look like on a slide under a microscope: thousands of tiny microbial cells humming and sparkling and whirling around like Catherine wheels as the glial cells repaired themselves. A biochemical ballet, propelled by forces beyond the reach of doctors and their machines. What traces would it leave for their scientific instruments?
He really did feel like there was fire inside him. He was burning up. Maybe that’s what this was, he thought, borderline delirious. Maybe this was what a miracle felt like when it was happening inside of you.
Chapter 43
Lillian
Jamie’s new treating doctor, Dr Mears, had a mousy blonde flyaway bob and glasses that always seemed to be askew. To Lillian, this was a comforting sign she had her priorities right: why stop to comb your hair when there are lives to be saved? Unfortunately, the news was less reassuring as Dr Mears explained that in addition to his pneumonia, Jamie had an infection in his blood.
‘How serious is it?’ Kate asked.
The doctor touched her pen to her chin. ‘We have some options. I see he had a stem cell transplant when he was younger,’ she said.
‘Yes. He had leukaemia when he was a baby,’ Lillian said. The thought of that period caused her throat to tighten and her heart to speed up.
‘And the donor was a family member?’ Dr Mears asked.
‘Yes, my Uncle Francis. My dad’s brother,’ said John.
‘That’s good. Stem cells can be an effective treatment for blood infections like this. Is your uncle in a position to donate again?’
Lillian and John looked at each other. ‘We haven’t had contact in years,’ Lillian said.
‘I’m sure he’d do it again,’ John said. ‘We’ll get in touch and fly him over from WA immediately.’
‘Yes, please do that,’ the doctor said.
After Dr Mears left, Lillian grabbed John’s arm. ‘We’ve barely spoken to Francis since the first time we asked him to do this,’ she said.
‘He can’t hold that against us. We tried to build a relationship. He’s the one who resisted,’ John said. ‘He has always been a solitary person.’
‘Do you think he’d help? After all this time?’ Kate asked.
John shrugged, a little hopeless. ‘He’s family, isn’t he?’
‘I don’t even have his contact details in my phone,’ Lillian said. ‘I’ll have to go to the house and get the old address book out of the table that used to be next to the landline.’
John rubbed his chin. ‘He might not even be at his old house anymore.’
‘When did you last hear from him?’ Kate asked.
‘It’s been years.’
‘I’ll ring Aunt Mary and the cousins,’ Kate said. ‘Surely someone will know how to reach him.’
‘What if he doesn’t want to be reached?’ Lillian asked.
When Jamie was little Lillian had made sure he sent a Christmas card across the Nullarbor to the man who had saved his life every year. At first there had been spotty replies, usually appearing in January or February. A card in return, with a crisp ten dollar note slipped between the pages. Uncle Francis stopped replying altogether around the time Jamie started high school. The answer to his Christmas card that year had been the card itself, unopened, and stamped ‘Return to Sender’ in green post office ink. A terrifying thought was stirring in the back of Lillian’s mind. She tried to ignore it and stay positive.
‘If he’s no longer at his Esperance house, whoever is there may have a forwarding address,’ Lillian said.
‘We’ll find him,’ John said. ‘Francis and I never had a disagreement. It was my father he fell out with. He helped before. He’ll help again. He may be eccentric but he’s not heartless.’
‘Will he even be able to donate at his age? He must be, what eighty-five now?’ Kate asked.
John did the sums in his head. ‘Eighty-six.’
Fear flared in Lillian’s belly. She had to ask the question. ‘Are we … are we sure he’s still alive?’
‘We would have heard if anything had happened …’ John trailed off. All three of them looked at each other in an airless moment of shame. They were about to ask so much of an old man who they hadn’t bothered to check in on in years.
‘Someone would have called if something had happened to Uncle Francis,’ John insisted. ‘Some person close to him would have taken it upon themselves to reach out.’ His words were steeped in doubt. After a tortured pause he added, ‘We tried to keep in touch.’
‘I’ll race to the house and get the address book,’ Kate said.
After she was gone Lillian was finally alone with her husband for the first time since he’d revealed the secret he had been keeping. She still felt angry, and betrayed. But the important thing now was tracking down his uncle.
‘You did try to build a relationship with Francis,’ she offered. ‘This isn’t your fault.’
Kate rang Lillian twenty minutes later with good news. ‘I found it!’ She read the vital digits down the line. John then dialled the landline with the area code. It rang out. There was no way to leave a message. ‘Nothing,’ he said, tense.
‘We’ll keep trying,’ Lillian said.
Kate returned soon after. ‘I found these too,’ she said, emptying her handbag of some old address books she found at the house and other family documents she thought might have some leads.
‘Rich is on his way. He’s going to help. Dad, he asked if Uncle Francis has an ABN. He might be able to use a business number to track him down.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ Lillian said.
‘I’ll start searching through these for people who might have a link to Grandad or Uncle Francis.’ Kate held up a red crocodile-skin address book that Lillian had bought shortly after she got married. While Kate searched, Lillian and John took turns calling the Esperance number at twenty-minute intervals. Every time Lillian tapped in the number she chanted ‘please’ in time with each bleep the phone made. Zero-please. Seven-please. Eight-please. Three-please. Rich arrived and set himself up with his laptop, looking for little breadcrumbs that might lead them to the man with the life-saving cells. One of them always sat by Jamie, hawk-eyed and ready to raise the alarm at the slightest hint of change.
When it was Lillian’s turn to call again the phone in Esperance rang once and a harried-sounding woman answered. ‘Hello, this is Patricia Bourke.’
Lillian’s heart leapt. ‘Oh, hello, I’m a relative of Francis Hogarth’s.’ She quickly explained she was trying to reach Francis urgently. ‘Do you have any way of contacting him? Please. I can’t tell you how important it is.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Patricia said. ‘My husband and I bought this house three years ago.’
‘Three years?’ Lillian said, dismayed.
‘I do remember meeting him briefly. He seemed like a nice man. He left us a basket of vegetables from the garden. Once I moved in, the veggie patch went to rack and ruin of course,’ Patricia said.
‘Did he leave a forwarding address? Or a phone number? Perhaps there are contact details on the contract of sale? Anything would help,’ Lillian said.
Patricia said she would try and find it but since it had been so long it might take a while to locate.
